Fate Altered Reality
by WriteShop
Summary: A version of the Grail war where Shirou summons Caster instead of Saber. except, it's not Medea. It's somebody else… Somebody with a connection to Shirou. And why does she have a mad-on for Archer?
1. Chapter 1

Ok, I wasn't planning to write this story. I have been working on some original fiction, and have been trying to focus on that instead of fanfiction. But this idea just kept showing up. And once I wrote the first part, it was even worse - whenever I opened my stories folder, it was sitting there, taunting me.

So I decided to write it.

this story will be pretty short (4-5 chapters) - I just want to get it finished so that I can get back to what I want to work on.

* * *

START

"Oh, shit, oh shit. He's going to kill me. Again!" Shirou stumbled into his workshop / shed and locked the door. He was just picking up a piece of pipe to use as a weapon when a circle on the floor glowed red. Shirou staggered backwards as he tried to get out of the glow. As he landed on his rear end a woman rose up out of the circle. She was a Japanese woman, dressed in a business woman's skirt and suit, her hair cut in a no-nonsense bob. She looked vaguely familiar, like he had seen her in a picture somewhere.

"I am Servant Caster. I ask you, are you my… Fuck, it's you!" She began, only to stop when she realized who she was speaking to. Before she could regain her composure, the window to the shed burst in to reveal Lancer perched in its place.

"What?" Shirou asked. Usually he was a quick thinker, but this was so far outside his field of experience that his brain had completely shut down.

"Just say 'yes'," Caster demanded.

"Yes?"

"Good" Caster turned and pointed her spread fingers at Lancer as he leaped in, shooting a barrage of lightning bolts from each fingertip.

Despite being in the air, Lancer managed to twist out of the way of most of the bolts, and deflected one with his spear. But when he landed, he looked much more wary than before. "Huh. So you're a magus. Why didn't you say so before I killed you? It would have saved you a lot of discomfort." Then he shrugged and smiled, "Though now that you are a master, we're back to square one." He leaped forward, striking at Caster with his spear. He twisted between the bolts of lightning she shot from her right hand, and he was almost at stabbing distance when he realized that he was going to miss. Somehow, he had stepped wrong, so that he would have to twist his body awkwardly to strike Caster.

Lancer leaped back and tried again. Shirou took up a ready stance, holding his reinforced steel pipe at the ready. He couldn't quite keep up with Lancer's attacks, but sooner or later he would have to pause, and he could strike then.

Again, lancer dodged Caster's attack, but now his position was even worse - not only would his lunge miss, but his back would be to that woman. "You're messing with reality, aren't you, lassie? That's why I hate witches. No good can come from them." Lancer grinned ferally. He loved a good fight, but this wasn't it. This was one of the most frustrating confrontations he had been in in a very long time, and he was starting to get angry. One eye squinted almost all the way shut, while the other opened to inhuman proportions. "Gae… " He raised his spear, to use it's magic power, to pierce all defenses when he froze. "My coward of a master demands that I return, He is concerned that you might have some trick up your sleeve that I haven't realized."

"Your master is a wise man," Caster smirked.

Lancer sighed, "I'll have to kill you later, witch." He turned to Shiro, "Ciao!" we saluted Shirou good naturedly and leaped out of the room.

Caster released a sigh, "That was close." She turned to Shirou "Without a chance to prepare my territory, I am at a severe disadvantage. Even an incredibly powerful and talented Magus like me is no match against a Knight class servant in a fair fight."

Shirou relaxed a little, and lowered his impromptu weapon, "Could you explain what is going on?"

"Sure," Caster smiled, "I forgot that you are a half trained incompetent. I am…" She froze as she sensed a presence trigger the Emya wards, "He's back!" she flew out the broken window.

Shirou followed, diving head first through the window and rolling to his feet outside. But while Caster flew over the roof of the main house, he had to make use of the doors, so he arrived several moments after she did, to see Caster confronting a surprised Rin Tohsaka.

"Wait! Don't hurt her!"

-FAR-FAR-

In spirit form, Archer watched as Shirou's servant froze momentarily. His left eyebrow went up towards his scalp as he took a closer look at Caster. _'Shit. Why does the world hate me?'_. And he meant it quite literally. Gaia DID hate him, or so he believed.

"So, I see you are a master as well, Emya," Rin was saying, to fill the awkward pause. Almost dying unexpectedly has that effect on some people.

"I guess so, or at least that's what Caster said, but I am still not certain what that means. I take it you are a magus as well?" Shirou hazarded.

Rin sighed, "Let's go inside and we can talk."

' _Are you certain that is wise?'_ Archer asked silently, ' _He is an enemy Master, after all'_

' _He.. I owe a debt to him. So I will explain the Grail war to him, and tomorrow we will go back to being enemies. Besides, he doesn't even know what's going on. It is an unfair advantage.'_ Rin replied, awkwardly, "Shirou - we have a truce, but only for today, Understood?"

" _There's no such thing as an 'unfair' advantage'',_ replied Archer.

' _You will abide by the truce, Archer.'_

' _I suppose I will.'_ Came the slightly insolent reply.

As Shirou made tea and snacks for his impromptu guests, Caster glared at the spot next to Rin, "Archer, it's bad manners not to be corporeal. Please materialize yourself."

Archer fade into view, leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed, and a small smirk on his lips.

"And sit your ass down!" Caster pointed at the spot next to Rin, "That is simple manners."

Archer quirked an eyebrow again.

Rin sighed, "Sit down archer. And try to be polite."

Archer threw up his hands and joined Rin. The three sat silently. As Shirou brought out a collection of teas "Sorry I don't have anything made, but I wasn't expecting guests" He stated apologetically. Caster was watching Archer like a hawk. Archer just smiled back.

"This is fine, Shirou." Rin took a sip of her tea, "Though in the future you should know I prefer mine with a little more sugar." She sipped daintily, "So tell me what you know about the Holy Grail war"

As she began explaining the history and mechanics of the battle royal known as the Holy Grail War, Caster reached out mentally to Archer.

' _I know why you are here, Archer.'_ She sent silently, _'And if you so much as hurt a hair on Shirou's head I will annihilate you so thoroughly that your existence will be wiped from the Throne of Heroes._ ' Caster took a sip of her tea.

Archer's lips twitched slightly up,. _'I love you too.'_

The cup cracked in Caster's hand as she almost growled.

Rin stopped mid-lecture to look at the enemy servant, before glancing at her own, and then back again, "Honestly, Archer, can't I take you anywhere without you doing something to piss everybody off?"

"Not everybody." Archer finally picked up his tea cup and turned it around in his hands, as if to catch the light. "Just certain thin skinned individuals."

Shirou glanced around the table at his guests. He wasn't certain what had just happened. "Caster, Rin, please take it easy. Archer is also my guest, and I would hope that you treat him civilly."

Rin glanced at Archer and scowled, _'We better finish this fast and leave,'_ Archer did have a point - she and Shirou were supposed to be enemies. But he was her estranged sister's closest friend. Maybe even boyfriend, though she was scared to ask about that. She couldn't just abandon him to die. "Let's go register you as an official Master in the War."

"But I'm not certain if I even want to participate!"

"We should still go - the arbitrator will do a better job of explaining what is at stake, and you can make up your mind then. Come, the church is a bit of a walk so we should get going." Rin stood up.

Archer stretched, "It's a waste of time. I'm going to go scout out the city, see if I can find any unusual activity."

"You do that," Caster interrupted before Rin had a chance to say anything. The young magus squinted at the Heroic Spirit, ' _Archer - go incorporeal and follow us just outside Caster's detection limit. I don't trust that bitch - there is something screwy with her.'_

Archer faded from view, sending, _'You don't know the half of it.'_

As the party of four made their way to Kotomine church, it began to drizzle. Caster produced an umbrella from somewhere, handing it to Shirou.

Rin glanced at the servant of the spell, "Have you got another one of those?"

"Sorry, You will have to share" Caster made a shooing motion towards Shirou. Rin glared at her, and made a point of walking separately, though as the walk progressed, she slowly drifted closer and closer to Shirou, so that she was soon in the umbrella's shadow (and he held it out so that it was more over her than him).

-FAR-FAR-

The interior of the church was dark, with only a pair of dim lights lit at the front. "This is the place?" Asked Shirou, looking around nervously. There was something wrong with this place. The fact that Caster had to wait outside, since servants were not permitted into the sanctuary, made it that much more nerve wracking.

"Yeah. The fake priest is the one in charge of moderating the war. He's a bigger asshole than Archer, but he knows his stuff."

"Why thank you, Rin, for that glowing recommendation," Kirei stepped out from the shadows. "And you are here to register as a master?" he asked Shirou.

"Hold on! I am not certain I want to participate in this Holy Grail war. I don't see the point of fighting for something like that."

Kirei scowled, "And there is nothing your heart desires? No wish?"

"Nothing I am willing to kill for." Shirou replied.

"But other WILL kill for theirs. And they may not be terribly scrupulous about who they kill." Kirei leaned in close to Shirou and whispered with a leer, "And you don't know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, what dark wish they might make if they win the Grail."

Shirou drew back from the disturbing priest. "Fine, I'll enter, to keep others safe, and to defend against perverted dreams," He stared pointedly at Kirei.

Kotomine laughed, "That's wonderful. I shall record you as the seventh and final master. Now the War can truly begin!"

Rin glared at her mentor, _'I've never seen him this happy. I hope he's not into boys or something._ ' She took a protective step closer to Shirou. "Let's get out of here."

-FAR-FAR-

Outside, Caster hummed as she paced along the street in front of the church. Everything was going according to plan. She glanced up from the sidewalk and smiled as her young master came out of the church, sharing an umbrella with his girlfriend-to-be. _'Good - a couple more gentle nudges...'_

Rin looked around. "We should leave. Something feels.. off"

"Very good, Tohsaka. I guess your sensitivity to this city comes from being being the Second Owner" Everybody's head whirled to see a very well dressed ten year old girl step out of the shadows, followed by a monolith of a man in a Greek kilt. "My name is Illyasviel von Einzbern," She turned to Shirou, "Onii-chan, I see that you finally summoned your Servant. Now we can see what you are made of." The way she said it implied that she was referring to his viscera more than to his character. She turned to her giant Servant, "Hercules, Kill them"

Caster stepped in front of Shirou.

The man-mountain drew back his sword and charged. As he covered the yards between them, Caster smirked, _'come to me, Berserker'._ The intricate pattern that she had paced earlier flared with light as the Servant stepped into the spell she had traced there, enclosing Hercules in shimmering, glass-like walls. As the giant servant's charge faltered, the shimmering walls started to fold in on themselves, folding the trapped servant at the same time, appearing to warp reality itself.

The glowing glass walls folded in half again, reducing the space inside to a quarter of the original

And again, another fold.

But this time, the glass-ine wall bulged out and shattered, as Hercules burst out. "That was a worthy attempt, spawn of Hecate, but now you die." He raised his sword.

"The Saber class has A class magic resistance," Explained the little blond girl. "You have no defense against my Hercules."

' _Archer, get over here quick!_ ' Rin sent silently. But she knew that he would be too late - in the seconds it would take him to reach them, Saber would cut down first Caster and then Shirou. And then what would Sakura think? Rin cast Gander at the behemoth, but the spell just splashed across Hercules' biceps with no effect.

"Stay back, Master!" Caster desperately created a shimmering distortion in front of her. Saber's sword smashed through it, and would have sheared through Caster as well if it hadn't deflected up slightly at the last moment.

Saber turned to see Shirou facing him, a reinforced branch in his hands. "You're not hurting her!" he growled.

Caster's eyes got huge, _'stupid. he's always so stupid._ ' But Caster was a pragmatist. She cast a powerful reinforcement on her master, to give him superhuman speed and strength.

As Saber cut at Shirou, the red head lunged aside and deflected the sword, managing to avoid getting hit just by a hair's breadth. In the space of a second Saber attacked again and again, at a speed that was blinding for a regular human, but each time Shirou managed to deflect most of the blow, only taking grazing scratches that ripped across his chest and arms.

As he stumbled back into a guard stance, blood flowing down his arm, Hercules staggered - Archer raced in from behind, one sword sweeping across Saber's back and the other lashing out, hamstringing the giant. But as he turned to deal a finishing strike, he was caught unawares by Saber, who pivoted on his (now uninjured) legs and dealt Archer a powerful backhanded blow.

As Archer smashed into a lamp post, Illya turned from her observation of Shirou, "Enough Hercules. We are done here." She turned back to Shirou, who was gasping for breath as he held a hand to the wound on his chest. "Onii-chan. You are a very interesting person. I look forward to talking with you some more." She turned and left, quickly fading in to the shadows.

"Shirou!" Caster called out as her master toppled face first to the asphalt. "The reinforcement was too much for him! Quick, we have to get him back home."

"I'll carry him" Archer volunteered as he staggered up from where he had landed.

Caster looked at him suspiciously.

"Don't worry. I won't hurt him. My foolish master seems quite taken with the little moron."

Rin stuttered a protest, but her heart wasn't in it as she was distracted by Shirou's condition.

-FAR-FAR-

After the trio had carried the unconscious Shirou to the Emya residence, Caster started a healing ritual while Rin arranged Shirou comfortably on his futon.

"That's all for now." Caster examined her handiwork. Shirou already looked less faded. "He should be fine in the morning. You can bandage the gash now." She cast a wary glance over at Archer.

Rin frowned at her classmate as she grabbed the role of bandages. "Archer, why don't you act as a look-out on the roof. I am concerned one of the other Masters might have noted that Shirou is injured and might try to use this opportunity to finish him off."

Archer opened his mouth to say something, but then, after a quick glance at Caster's scowl, shrugged and disappeared from view.

Several minutes passed in silence as Rin delicately wrapped the bandages around Shirou's chest, adjust them to make sure they fit perfectly. Caster knelt by her side and helped prop Shirou up so that Rin could pass the bandages under his torso.

"You don't like my Archer much, do you?" Rin finally asked.

"No." Caster paused in thought, "I have a small amount of... precognition. And I have foreseen that Archer means to kill Shirou."

"Precognition? Does that even exist in this day?" Rin looked skeptically at Caster, who was dressed in modern clothes. "That is approaching True Magic!"

"And you think you get to be a Caster class Servant by pulling a prize out of a box of Cracker Jacks?" Caster huffed, "I am… was, the most powerful magus of my generation. I am the only person to kick Zeltrech's ass in a thousand years, after one of his little practical jokes almost ate the universe." Caster at this point was standing and bending over to wag her finger at Rin.

' _High strung, isn't she?'_ Archer added silently. Rin had left their telepathic link open, so that he could listen in on Caster through her ears.

' _Aren't you glad I'm your master and not her?'_ Rin replied, gently resting a hand on Shirou's bandaged chest. _'But she is right - I don't want you hurting Shirou.'_

' _He is a master.'_

' _I KNOW! I will deal with him when I am ready to.'_

-FAR-FAR-

"Wha..?" Shirou swam up to consciousness, "Where am I? Is everybody ok?" Shirou groggily sat up, the pain in his chest a minor inconvenience.

"Baka! Lie back down!" Rin pushed Shirou back down onto his futon. "You're back home, Archer carried you here, and Caster and I have managed to fix you up. As a Servant of the Spell, she knows powerful healing magics."

Shirou glanced down at the bandage wrapping his torso. "That's great. Where is she now?"

"She's in your kitchen, making some broth. She asked me to keep an eye on you while..Hey!" Rin pushed Shirou back down onto his futon, "Where do you think you are going?"

"I was just, I mean I don't want…" He wilted under Tohsaka's glare, "The kitchen."

"Baka! Caster is perfectly able to make some Miso soup. Your job is to rest and recover!" Rin sighed, _'Honestly, it's like everybody else takes precedence over him. I thought Caster was being foolish asking me to sit and watch over him, but now I see that she was right.'_ She glared at Shirou, "You need a babysitter, not a Servant. It's a wonder you didn't get yourself killed when you faced off against Hercules. If your Servant hadn't been an enormously powerful Magus, able to reinforce you to your breaking point, you would have died!"

"And if I hadn't stepped in Caster would have died."

"Shirou, she's already dead. didn't you get that from my previous explanation? She's the spirit of some long dead hero. The worst that can happen to her is that she is sent back to the Throne of Heroes."

"She's alive right now. So as far as I am concerned she deserves the same protection as anybody else."

"And what about you? Do you deserve protection?"

Shirou didn't answer, looking at the floor instead.

"Baka. If you get killed, Matou-chan will be heartbroken!"

"What… What do you mean by that?"

Now it was Rin's turn to look away, "You figure it out." she finally muttered.

Shirou pondered for a moment before… "Wait - Sakura! Morning!"" He flung his covers off and pulled on a loose shirt over his bandaged torso.

"This again?" Rin stood up to block his path.

"Sakura and Fuji-nee will be here for breakfast any moment. I need to.." At that moment there was the sound of the front door opening.

"Shirou!"

"Sempai."

Echoed through the house. Shirou almost ran down the hall, _'I don't feel too bad. Either I wasn't too badly injured or Caster's healing magic is really powerful'_ , "Oh, Hi Sakura, Fuji-nee. I'm sorry I overslept…"

"Who's that?" Taiga demanded pointing to Caster.

"I'm Maiya Hisau, a friend of Kiritsugu Emya. I was in the area, so I thought I'd stop by." Caster replied

"And ah, she arrived late last night, so I didn't feel it was right to turn her away. She didn't have any hotel reservations or anything." Added Shirou, smiling sheepishly.

Taiga squinted at Caster, "Maiya Hisau is dead. Kiritsugu had a shrine for her."

"The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. But given how out of touch I was, I am not surprised my former lover thought I was dead."

"Wait, What?" Fujimura demanded as Rin walked into the room as well. "And oh, hello, Tohsaka. How long have you been here?"

"I just came by a few minutes ago. I missed school yesterday, so I was hoping to go over Emya-kun's notes before class."

While Fujimura was trying to figure out who was here and why, Sakura glanced between Rin and Shirou with a sinking heart., _'Nee-chan always takes the good things in my life.'_

"Well, I guess there's nothing wrong with that. Let's eat!" Fujimora sat down as Shirou and Sakura repaired to the kitchen, to make a few odds and ends to go with the Miso soup.

The atmosphere in the kitchen was very awkward. Sakura acted pleasant and sweet as always, but was oddly tentative. And Shirou kept watching her out of the corner of his eye _'Rin is just imagining things. Sakura is just a friend.'_ But now that he thought about it, he began to wonder.

Finally, the food was served and eaten, and Fujimura had rushed off to school, followed by Sakura, who had archery practice.

Rin and Shirou walked to school together. "So, you're pretty good friends with Matou?" Rin finally ventured, fishing.

"Yeah, she's been coming over to help me cook since I got really sick in middle school." Shirou paused for a moment before continuing on, "She's a good friend, but that's all she is. We both just happen to like cooking."

"Hmm," Rin nodded. As the two got to the entrance to the school grounds, Rin turned to Shirou. "Remember, we're back to being enemies. If I meet you again, I will try to kill you." She watched to see if Shirou comprehended the seriousness of the situation.

"I understand."

Rin entered and turned right, while Shirou walked off to the left..

* * *

nb: in Japanese, 'Second Owner' means manager, but with a stronger personal investment.

.

Hello all, thank you for reading my story.

I am just adding a quick note here to tell you that I am going to try my hand at original writing, and that if you want to help support me in my endeavors (or if you just want to watch me struggle and fail), come check out my page.

P atreon com / writeshop

I will continue to write Fanfiction as well, and your support will help motivate me to write faster


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews, but it's hard to reply to reviews if you don't sign in.

Lilly - Hercules was summoned as Saber instead of Berserker.

And I will try to tone down the swearing, but sometimes it is the fastest way to show a character's reaction. especially with Rin, who does not tolerate fools gladly. The 'dere' is only for the people she likes. Everybody else gets the 'Tsun'

* * *

START

Shirou and Rin went their separate ways after walking to school together under a flag of truce. ' _Tohsaka is actually pretty decent. She just hides behind an aloof facade,'_ Shirou mused on how she had gone out of her way to help him yesterday, bringing him up to speed on the Grail war. The fact that Rin had threatened to kill him the next time she saw him didn't make a strong impression. But as Shirou walked further on to the school grounds, he was pulled out of his internal world: He began to notice an odd, sickly smell, like rotting meat or blood.

As the day progressed, the rotting meat smell became stronger and stronger until finally at lunch it got so strong that Shirou could not stomach eating his food. He turned to his lunchtime companion, "Issei - do you smell anything?"

Issei Ryuudou, the Student Council president, was a close friend, and the two often ate lunch together in the student council room. In part because Issei often worked on council business during lunch.

Today, the paperwork had stayed in it's folder. Issei looked up from his bland meal, "I can't say that I do, Emya-kun." He gave an experimental sniff. "There is something odd, though, some niggling sensation just below the surface of my conscious awareness."

Shirou put down his bento. "Here, come with me." Shirou took a sniff, and pulled open the door. His nose led them down the hall and into an empty classroom.

"sniff"

"sniff"

Issei watched in bemusement as Shirou poked, prodded and sniffed his way through racks of A/V equipment, until finally: "Aha! It's coming from here!" Shirou pointed to an empty shelf.

Issei quirked an eyebrow before taking a closer look. He drew back, startled. He then reached out and tentatively ran his hand over the shelf. He jerked it back abruptly, as if burnt. "There is something wrong here." He glanced over at his friend and stood back up, rubbing his chin with one hand while supporting the elbow of that arm with the other hand. "I know this will sound odd. You know my father is the head monk at the Ryuudou temple. Well, one of the things he taught me is how to sense malign spiritual energy. I don't know how better to describe it. Father says that it's caused by evil spirits or curses. I don't know if I believe that, but this shelf is radiating that sort of wrongness."

Issei rubbed his forehead as he tried to assimilate the idea that his religious education might not be a complete waste of time, and that his father might be good for something other than soothing querulous old women.

"Is there anything you can do?" Shirou asked, _'I wonder if Ryuudou-san is a magus. No, he would have taught Issei in that case. He must just have some sort of rudimentary sensitivity.'_

Issei nodded, "I can write an Ofuda to purify the evil spirit." He pulled out his calligraphy kit and carefully wrote out a buddhist verse in beautiful kanji. "Fruits of my misspent youth," he quipped as he finished. He then taped the Ofuda underneath the shelf. "This way some well meaning tech-voc student won't throw it away before it has a chance to do it's work."

"I think there are more of these scattered all over the school," Shirou's head swiveled like a bloodhound.

"What are they? Is our school possessed?" Issei frowned. While he didn't plan to follow his father into the priesthood, his religious education was pretty thorough. These patches of spiritual corruption were bad news. "After classes are done, we should go find the rest of these patches and purify the school."

Shirou nodded. _'I wonder if these have anything to do with the Holy Grail war?'_ He concentrated and reached out mentally to Caster, giving her the details on what he had discovered.

' _Most likely yes.'_ Caster replied, ' _From your description, these sound like the anchor points for a draining spell, to siphon off life energy from the students to use to power a Servant. There must be another Master that attends your school.'_

Shirou thought about that, and then tentatively sent, _'You don't think Tohsaka would do something like this?'_

' _No. She's is tough and a little short tempered, but she has a heart of gold. She wouldn't do something truly foul like this.'_ Caster sent, _'I think you should get to know her - she would be a good ally.'_

Shirou let out a sigh of relief, _'That was my assessment as well.'_ He turned to Issei as they walked back to the club room. "Yeah, I have time after school. Let's clean this mess up then."

-FAR-FAR-

As soon as Shirou cleaned up his lunch things, he excused himself, saying he had to study for a quiz. He quickly made his way to an empty classroom and pulled out his cell phone. ' _Come on, pick up. Pick up.'_ Class would start in another few minutes, so his window of opportunity was very small.

Finally, "Hello?" came the voice on the other end.

"Hi, Sakura? There's something weird going on at school. I can't really explain what it is, but you should go home right after classes are out, ok?" Shirou knew that the Principal had announced yesterday that all after school activities would be cancelled and that all students should go straight home after class. But Rin's questions on the way to school that morning had brought Sakura to the forefront of his mind. Which for Shirou meant that he felt responsible. She was his Kohai, after all, and she always came by to help him out.

"Ok, Sempai. You do the same too, ok? I want you to take care of yourself." Sakura knew that Shirou had different standards for himself than for other people.

"I will be careful." Shirou agreed quickly, "I gotta go - class is starting soon and I need to get my books."

"I will see you after school."

-FAR-FAR-

Later that day, Shirou met up with Issei to start cleaning up the anchor points. They were just leaving a classroom after finishing up with the third spot of corruption when Issei jerked back into the room. He then peered around the corner and pointed down the hall, "Hey, what's Tohsaka doing still in here?" It was an hour after classes were over for the day, and Rin was notorious for disappearing as soon as school let out - In large part, that was what helped maintain her mysterious school idol image.

As Shirou stepped out into the hallway to take a look, Rin turned and spotted him in turn. "Emya" she said in a disappointed voice, "I told you that the next time I saw you I would have to kill you."

Shirou smiled, assuming she was joking. The smile slipped of his face as she pointed her finger at him like a kid making a gun from his finger, and then shot a ball of pitch black at him

"What the hell, Tohsaka?" he dodged back into the classroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

"She really IS a witch!" Issei's eyes were wide with fear.

"I KNOW!" Shirou muttered "Trace on!" and reinforced the door, before pulling Issei to the back of the classroom. As the the door began to buck and twist under Rin's continued magical assault, he tipped over a table and reinforced that as well. _'A heart of gold, Caster? Does that seem like a heart of gold to you?'_ Shirou sent, _'get here quick!'_ He turned to his companion, "Get a weapon. She's serious!"

Issei grabbed a chalkboard pointer.

Just as the door appeared about to fall off of it's hinges, there was a girlish scream from outside. "Tohsaka? Is that you?" Shirou called out.

"No." after a momentary pause, she continued, "It's the draining field. It's activated. Let's call a truce until we can deal with that, or it will end up killing everybody still in the school."

"Is that those spots of corruption that are scattered all over the school? Issei and I have been taking them down." Shirou opened the door.

"Are you crazy? She just tried to kill us!"

Rin face-palmed, "Shirou… Why did you involve this moron?" she asked in a menacing tone.

"He's been helping me disable the draining spell thingees."

"Him? A magus?"

Issei continued to stand close to the doorway, so that if Rin switched back to crazy psycho witch, he could hide behind the door. "I am not a wizard, but I AM trained as a priest. Mostly."

"We can debate this later. We need to go now!" Shirou raced down the hallway, followed by the other two. He threw open classroom doors as he went, but he couldn't see anybody.

"Let's try the gym" Issei ran ahead to the stairs. Down on the first floor, they found a girl collapsed in the hallway. Rin crouched down next to her as Shirou and Issei looked on. "She's had some of her life force drained. We need to get her out of the building promptly!"

Issei had just picked her up when a dagger came flying down the hallway at Tohsaka. Shirou instinctively blocked it with his arm. "That came from over there!" He ripped the dagger out of his arm and took off at a run in the direction of the attack.

"Baka! It's probably a Servant!' yelled Rin. As Shirou raced out of the building, Issei began muttering a protective mantra as he staggered in the opposite direction with the unconscious girl.

-FAR-FAR-

Shirou dodged as another dagger on a chain lashed out at him, _'I'm not prepared for this.'_ He rolled on the ground as a chain shot between his legs, tripping him.

"You're pretty fast for a human, boy, but you're not fast enough." a cold female voice called from amongst the trees. Shirou whirled, trying to pinpoint the origin. At the last moment, he saw motion out of the corner of his eye and he threw himself face first into the ground, barely avoiding the dagger chain. He rolled back to his feet with a stick in his hands. As he raised it to his shoulder to ready himself, a chain wrapped around his neck.

-FAR-FAR-

"Go, I'll help Emya" Rin yelled to a confused Issei.

"No, you're not going anywhere!" cackled Shinji as he stepped out from a classroom. Before Rin could cast a spell, he reached down to a book in his hands and flung a spray of black at her. Rin barely dodged in time

Issei looked conflicted about who to help.

"Run, you fool!" Rin yelled, shooting a gander shot at Shinji, who blocked it with the book, before slapping his hand on it, sending out a wave of concussive force that knocked Rin off of her feet.

-FAR-FAR-

Shirou struggled to loosen the chain that was looped around his neck as it pulled him up off of his feet. If it hadn't caught his hand in the loop as well, it would have already suffocated him. _'I need help._ ' Shirou gathered up his thoughts to call to Caster when a voice called out "No! Stop! Let him go!"

The Servant jerked to a halt like a puppet. Her hands slackened, letting her chains slip loose. As Shirou dropped to the ground, Sakura ran up to his side, catching him as best she could.

Shirou pulled the chain off of his throat "Caster, help me!" Another command seal faded away as there was a ripple in the air. The attacking servant fled, to be chased by Caster who had materialized from thin air.

"You said you would meet me to walk home from school." Sakura admonished Shiro, who frowned, as he had no memory of any such arrangement.

"That was very dangerous," Shirou looked down at the purple haired girl supporting him, "but thank you for saving me."

Sakura's frown turned into a radiant smile, "Always, Sempai."

-FAR-FAR-

"Not so high and mighty anymore are, you, Tohsaka-chan?" Shinji crowed as his spell blasted Rin's feet from under her, sending her face first to the ground. As she struggled to get back up, he prepared another spell, "Now, let's see how you like it when I have the power and treat YOU like scum!" He reached to fling another spell from his Book of the False Attendant when it burst into flame, as the command seal that powered it evaporated.

Shinji dropped the book, and it was completely consumed in a ball of fire before his horrified eyes.

"Scum, am I?" Rin ground out as she staggered back up to her feet, leaning on the wall as one of her legs wasn't supporting her.

Shinji glanced at the brunette. Rin was still a little wobbly, but the sheer fury radiating off of her was an almost palpable force. Shinji looked around for a weapon, for anything to protect him from the oncoming storm. Not seeing anything, he turned to run. Which was when when a woman in a black hooded cloak stepped out from nowhere and jammed a dagger up into his heart. As Shinji collapsed at her feet, the hooded woman smiled up at Rin and faded away into a swirl of smoke.

-FAR-FAR-

Caster chased after the fleeing Servant. The purple haired woman leaped from building to building quicker than the eye could follow. When she reached the first skyscraper, she ran up it so fast that she appeared to be flying. Caster followed at her best speed. Her flight was slower than that of her prey, but more direct.

As Caster crested the top of the skyscraper, there was a flash of light, and the Servant, now revealed as Rider, came flashing down towards her, mounted on a blazing white pegasus. Caster raised her hand and a glasslike sheet of force appeared directly in front of Rider. The edges of the glass danced with pale blue flames.

As Rider and her mount slammed into the sheet, they collapsed, not physically, but like they were diving into a tunnel, or an extrusion that was collapsed back into a two dimensional image. Rider looked out from the glass, horrified, as Caster raised her upturned hand and curled her fingers into a fist. The glass sheet shattered into hundreds of shards, and along with it, Rider.

-FAR-FAR-

Shirou took a sniff as he slowly made his way back towards the school building. ' _The draining spell - it's gone.'_

"I called an ambulance, but will it be safe for them to come here?" Shirou turned to see Issei crouching behind a bush, the girl he had carried out of the school lying next to him. He had taken out his calligraphy set.

"Put that away. The spell is gone." replied Rin as she limped over to the boys. Her frown deepened when she saw Sakura supporting Shirou.

"We should talk about what happened here." Her comment was directed to Shirou.

"Yes we should. " Sakura interrupted, looking stubbornly at Rin.

Rin sighed. "Fine, Fine. We can meet at Emya's."

"I'll make dinner," the boy volunteered.

-FAR-FAR-

Much of dinner was cooked by Sakura, over Shirou's protests that he was all better.

The crowd gathered in Shirou's dining room was large. In addition to the host and Sakura, there was Rin, Issei and Caster. The dinner was spent bringing Issei up to speed on magecraft and the Holy Grail war. Sakura sat quietly after admitting, in a quiet, almost ashamed tone, that she was familiar with both.

"So what next, sempai?" Sakura asked once the explanations had finally wound down, "Are you still going to be Shirou's enemy?" the quiet and retiring girl sat close to the boy in question and looked at the Tohsaka heir with unusual intensity.

Rin frowned down at her hands, "No, I owe him my life. And besides, we have bigger fish to fry than some third rate Magus." that last part was a reminder directed at Archer, who was watching the proceedings without materializing.

"What do you mean, by that, Tohsaka-san? You seem to be implying that once the greater threat is dealt with, you will come after Shirou again." Issei glowered at the school idol.

"That is exactly what I mean. But right now, we have Saber, who is an incredibly powerful class, and one that is filled by a demigod from legend. He will not be easy to defeat. And there is also the other servant, most likely Assassin, that killed Shinji."

"Ryuudou," Caster turned to the young monk, "Has there been any unusual activity up at the temple? I have a premonition that one of the Servants might be operating from there."

"Not that I am aware of. But you are welcome to come take a look, as long as you avoid breaking anything" The second part of the statement was accompanied by a glance at Rin.

Rin rolled her eyes, "Ryuudou temple would make a logical choice for a base of operations, given that it sits on a natural well of power. We should go check it out." She smiled evilly at Issei, "We'll go poke around tomorrow, maybe prod a few things."

"But for now, you should head home and try to act normal," Caster added,"We'll come see you tomorrow, and you'll let us in, telling your father that we are friends from school."

"Are you certain that's a good idea?" Shirou asked, "If there is a servant up there, Issei could be at risk."

"All the more reason for him to go home and act normal - the Servant won't want to make trouble at their home base. It could attract attention." Rin countered. "And with him as our guide, we won't appear suspicious."

"We know that the servant up there is not Caster, so we don't have to worry about him being mind controlled or something," finished Caster.

"And when are you going home?" Issei asked Rin.

"Don't worry about me, Ryuduou-kun. I am a big girl., I can take care of myself."

"That's not what I meant. I am worried about Shirou…"

"I will protect his virtue, if that is your concern," Caster smirked.

Rin added, "Go on home - we're just going to be discussing some magecraft."

Issei sighed in defeat and collected his things. Once he had left, Shirou turned to Tohsaka, "So what do you want to discuss?"

"Nothing. I just needed Ryuudou to leave, and he's paranoid about me for some reason. I didn't think he would react very well if I told him that I was planning to spend the night."

"What?" Sakura squeaked. She had been so quiet that the others had again forgotten that she was there.

"I don't mean that way! But I don't want to split up our forces at this point. The whole idea of an alliance is that we will make up for each other's deficiencies. Especially those of Caster's master's." A pointed scowl at Shirou

"Hey.."

Sakura giggled, "Oh that's ok. Just this once, let somebody else protect you."

-FAR-FAR-

"We need to talk about out tactics" Caster cornered Shirou as he sat down in his shed to practice his spellcraft. "If your going to insist on fighting against Servants as you are, you are going to get killed."

"I'm not going to stand back and let other people protect me" Shirou replied stubbornly. "Besides, as a Caster, you're not much use if the enemy Servant gets in close on you."

"I can handle myself in a fight," Caster retorted hotly. "Be that as it may, though, I actually meant is that I can places a series of spells on you that will increase your speed and strength, so that you will have a chance, at least against the slower servants. Take off your clothes"

"What?" Shirou asked, surprised.

"Don't worry, I don't have any impure intentions towards you, " Caster smirked, "I just need to paint several runes on your body. They act as anchor points for the spell."

Shirou did as he was asked, stripping down to his underwear while Caster painted his arms and legs with glowing runes _'I hope nobody comes in while she's doing this. I'll die from embarrassment.'_

After fifteen minutes, Caster stood up. "Done. now get your pants back on before Tohsaka walks in and get the wrong idea." Caster looked the other way while Shirou hastily pulled his clothes back on. After an awkward pause, she added, "Speaking of Tohsaka, you should ask her to help you with your magecraft. That is another area you could improve in quickly with a little guidance."

"Why can't you help me?" Asked Shirou as he buttoned up his shirt.

"My style is not compatible with modern magecraft," Caster with a sweeping gesture, as if to brush away the inferior modern magic away.

"You look pretty modern," Shirou looked at the business suit that Caster was wearing.

"This?" Caster straightened her skirt, "You don't expect me to wear a Kimono or something? I dress to fit the times."

"You fit them very well. I can't even imagine you in a kimono" Shirou sniped back.

Caster blushed, "Erh, well, maybe not a kimono, but you know what I mean."

"Actually, I don't."

Caster sighed, "Go get Tohsaka, and ask her for help. Remember to be polite - you won't get anywhere with her if you are all bossy and rude."

-FAR-FAR-

"Tohsaka?" Shirou knocked on the door to the room where Rin was staying, "Can you help me with my magecraft. I really don't know what I'm doing.

The door slid open, "Yeah, that's pretty obvious. Let me grab my sweater."

As Rin turned away, the neighboring door slid open, "Sempai? I will help as well."

"Oh, hello." Shirou glanced at the clock. _'I hadn't realized she was planning to stay the night as well.'_ Then Shirou froze as something finally penetrated, "Wait - you're a magus as well?"

"I thought you realized that this afternoon, sempai." Sakura replied in a small voice as she looked down at the floor. "Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all, it's just that I'm surprised." Shirou was having a hard time keeping up as the world around him changed (or maybe he was just able to see it more clearly). Rin was a Magus. Sakura was one too. And Servants and the Grail War. But one thing he could rely on was Sakura.

"Where's your workroom?" Rin asked. She eyed the other two teens. She still wasn't certain about Shirou, but it was pretty obvious that Sakura was in love with him. "I'll let Sakura teach, while I supervise. It will be a good experience for both of you." Rin gave in to her altruistic side. Sakura was her imouto, after all.

-FAR-FAR-

"Doesn't that hurt, sempai?" Sakura asked.

"A little, but I am used to it." Shirou replied with a shrug and a smile

"No, no, NO!" Rin interrupted. "Turning your nerves into Mage circuits is not something you just brush off with a 'doesn't that hurt?' That is the stupidest thing I have EVER seen anybody do! You already have perfectly good Mage circuits. Use them!"

"Do not yell at Sempai," Sakura quietly interposed herself between Shirou and Rin, "If you can help him use his circuits correctly, do so, but don't blame him for not knowing something he was never taught."

Rin sighed, and forced a smile, "You're right of course. I am just furious at his teacher for letting Shirou do something so dangerous. He could fry his nerves!" She turned to the object of the conversation, "Here, sit. I'm going to link my magic with yours. Then I want you to try to activate a magic circuit WITHOUT converting any nerves, and I will guide you."

Rin sat down opposite Shirou and then leaned forwards until her forehead was resting against his. "Ok, go."

As Shirou struggled to find his mage circuits, Sakura watched the tableau in front of her - her estranged sister sitting intimately with Shirou. She wished it could be her in Tohsaka position, but with her magic tainted by the worms, her method of accessing her circuits was not normal. There was nothing she could do to help. Again.

It took a half hour, but finally Rin leaned back. "See, that wasn't so hard!"

"I… that was so weird. It just worked. I didn't have to fight my magic to get it to activate."

"Baka. Magic isn't supposed to a fight. It's as natural as breathing." Rin shook her head in amazement, ' _Does he do EVERYTHING the hard way?'_

"Come, you should rest." Sakura took Shirou's hand and pulled him up, "we have a busy day tomorrow."


	3. Chapter 3

Shirou glanced at his watch. It was still early - he had stopped off at the market on his way home from school, to pick up some supplies, since his kitchen wasn't stocked for so many guests. But now he had to rush to get back in time for their trip up to Ryuudou.

"Hello, Oni-san. I've been watching you." Shirou froze as he saw the little blond girl step up to him.

"Uhm… Hello, Illyasviel." She didn't appear to be threatening today, so Shirou decided to hear her out. And anyways, the street was almost empty. If she did attack, he was the only one at risk here.

"Oh, you can call me Illya." she smiled, "there is no reason to be so formal."

"You aren't going to attack me, are you?' Shirou asked as he carefully put the grocery bag on the ground and got ready to duck for cover.

"No, not right now." Illya picked up the bag, "Right now I want to get to know you. You're not what I was expecting." She led the way to a playground across the street. She put the groceries down on a bench and walked over to swing. "Come, give me a push."

Shirou complied.

"I really like the swings, but it's so much nicer when somebody else is pushing you. I haven't had anybody to push me since father went away."

"What happened to him?" Shirou asked, making conversation.

Illya swung quietly for several minutes, and Shirou began to suspect that he might have asked an inappropriate question. "I don't know. My... caretaker told me many things, but he was lying." She turned her head to smile at Shirou, "I had a rather sheltered upbringing, but don't assume that I am naive." she said it lightly, but there was something hollow in her eyes.

 _'Right. don't lie to Illya'_ Shirou nodded carefully. Not that he would anyways. Despite what had happened the other day, she seemed like a nice girl. Maybe she was like Rin, and hid behind a uber-professional facade. Except hers seemed delicate.

"Anyways, that is why I am in Japan, to learn about what happened to my father."

"Who was your father?" Shirou didn't know of any local magi, but he was always willing to help.

"Kiritsugu Emiya."

Shirou missed his next push, letting the swing catch him in the face.

Illya giggled, "You should be more careful, oni-san."

Shirou went back to pushing, "when did father go away?" He asked, stalling for time so that his brain could process what Illya had said.

"After the last Holy Grail war, he left me in that cold drafty castle, and never returned." her voice held a tone of bitterness and anger.

"I'm sorry." Shirou was quiet for a moment, "Is your castle hard to reach? Father was very sick after the war. He hid it well at first, but something had happened to him back then. I know he made several trips somewhere in the first year that I was living with him, but he always came back looking disappointed, and after that, he was too weak to travel." Shirou wasn't certain how much Illya knew about his relation to her father, but given the 'Oni-san', she must know some. And given how delicate she was, it really was safer to let her ask the questions.

Now it was Illya's turn to look pensive. "I think I would like to get to know more about those years."

"Great. You can come over for dinner. I just bought food for company."

"I did not say I want to meet your friends." Illya jumped off of the swing when it was at it's apex, landing with lady like precision. "I said I want to get to know you." She turned to face Shirou and gestured. Shirou slumped to the ground.

-FAR-FAR-

"Where is Shirou?" Caster asked as Rin walked into the Emiya residence.

"I don't know. I saw hiw as school let out, but he was gone by the time I had taken my shoes from my locker. He's not home yet?" Rin asked, puzzled. "I can scry for him."

"Archer!" Caster growled, "What did you do to Shirou?"

The white haired Servant materialized next to Rin. "I? I had nothing to do with whatever folly that idiot is involved in."

"Why are you always blaming my servant?" Rin demanded, "He's always acted like a gentleman around you and Shirou."

"See, I'm a gentleman" Archer bowed to Caster.

"No, you're an asshole," Corrected Rin, "but you ACT like a gentleman around company."

"Don't give me any of that smug shit!" Caster stepped right up to Archer so that she was in his personal space, "I know you, and I know you have it in for Shirou!"

"Have I told you that you look cute when you are angry?" Archer replied.

Caster's eyes got huge, and a spell began to form on her hands.

"Caster! Wait - we are allies here." Rin turned to her Servant, "Archer, did you have anything to do with Shirou's disappearance?"

"No. As far as I know, he went out to school, that is all." Archer sighed, "Fuyuki city is dangerous right now, and that idiot is too trusting to do an adequate job of protecting himself." Both women nodded in agreement.

"I'll start my scrying" Rin volunteered.

"You do that, but I expect I'll have found him before you finish. Your scrying spells are too slow." Caster sounded a touch competitive.

"Is that so?" Rin quirked an eyebrow. _'I'll show that old hag!'_

Archer smirked, as Rin had unintentionally broadcast that thought, _'Oh, she's not so old. And she has a nice ass.'_

Rin froze and slowly pivoted to glare at her servant, "Archer. Get your mind out of the gutter. We have work to do!"

Caster had already started her spell, but she still had a free moment to think, _'If that pervert starts causing trouble for Rin as well… His days are numbered.'_

-FAR-FAR-

"He's at the von Einzbern estate. He was probably taken there by Saber and his master." Rin pronounced. Caster muttered something about etheral echoes and scrying interference.

"So what's the plan? Do we just go in through the front door and hope for the best?" asked Archer.

"No - it will be better if we sneak in, at least as much as we can. Once we are next to the bounded field covering the property, I will attune us to it, and then we can see how far we can get before we have to fight Saber."

"How long will the attunement take?" Rin had never heard of a spell like that. _'It must be one of the lost magics. If modern Magi knew how to cast something like that, it would make bounded fields obsolete._ '

"It will take about an hour, but it has to be done from close proximity to the bounded field."

"That's fine - that will let us plan some tactics. Let's go." Archer volunteered.

The three reluctant allies set out for the mansion, Archer carrying Rin as he took giant leaps forward, and Caster skimming over the ground in level flight.

' _Stop looking at her ass...sets!'_ Rin broadcast at Archer, ' _Aren't you the one who's always going on about her being an enemy and all that'_

' _I can't help it - she's flying right in front of me. Also, sometimes you need to plan for the future, but other times you just have to live in the moment and appreciate what you have, because you never know when it will be gone.'_

Rin glanced at her Servant, "Huh. that was surprisingly insightful"

"There!" Caster pointed to a small cottage. "Set down over there, and I will start attuning."

Fifteen minutes later, she was done with the chanting. "Ok, now we wait - there is no way to rush this part." They were inside the main room of the dwelling. "It takes some time for the Bounded field to get used to our prana signature."

Archer nodded, "Last time we fought Saber, you enchanted Shirou so that he was fast enough to deflect Saber's blows. Can you do that for me?"

Caster frowned, "You're a Servant of the bow."

"Yeah, but I'm pretty good with swords. I think I would have made a better Saber than Archer." He smiled disarmingly.

"It's a good idea. Go ahead and do it," added Rin. "in the meantime I will prepare a set of Prana infused gems." She pulled out a cloth bag and took out a half dozen gems. "I have stored several years worth of power in these. With a little effort, I can set them to release all of it in one explosive burst." She got to work.

Caster watched her for a moment before turning to follow Archer outside.

Archer stood looking across the forest at the barely visible roof of the von Einzbern mansion. Though it was shaped more like a castle than a house.

"Why are you being so helpful?" Caster demanded.

"Why not?" Archer paused, "Was the Archer that you summoned less helpful?"

"What?" Caster looked flummoxed.

"Oh, come on. Did you think I wouldn't be able to recognize you, Counter Guardian TOHSAKA?" Archer continued to stare off into the distance as Caster tried to compose herself.

"How? I don't look like her. She's still a child!"

"Yes, you do." Archer smirked, "Besides, you aren't the only one from the future."

"Apparently not the SAME future, though. I am not a Counter Guardian."

Archer turned to look at Caster finally. "Oh? You actually made Heroic Spirit? How on earth did that happen?"

Caster scowled at Archer, "It's because of Shirou. We didn't have long together before you, THAT you, murdered him, but those few days were some of the most significant, most formative of my life. His idealism, his drive to make the world a better place changed me. They cracked open the shell I had created around myself, and made me a better person."

"Ah, and unrealistic idealism always translates into being a hero." snarked Archer.

"Would you just shut up?" Caster sighed, "I became an apprentice of Zeltrech. Everything was going great, I was learning so much from him, and then one of his little experiments royally fucked up. Zeltrech managed to tear apart the boundaries between our reality and a neighboring universe. But it wasn't a universe that was remotely similar to ours. Soon, portals to the other world started to open up, and chthonic horrors began to leak through. And Zeltrech, that asshole, just shrugged and said he was going to move to the universe next door."

Caster was speaking with barely repressed anger, "But I wasn't going to put up with that... that. I wasn't just going shrug and walk off. Sometimes, you need to take a stand, to fight for what matters." Caster paused, before continuing. She was looking out over the forest, but she was seeing something from her memory, "I was everywhere, at every portal. I drove those things back from the largest gaps and reduced the infestation to manageable levels. And after that, I reached out to the very fabric of the universe and sealed the rip in time-space" Caster took a deep breath. "That must have been when I died, because I can't remember anything after that."

Archer nodded, and the two stood together, staring off into the distance. Looking at the passion in TOHSAKA as she spoke was… Moving? Awe-inspiring? He wasn't certain. ' _This sense of redemption must be what Kiritsugu felt when he rescued me from the fire.'_

"And that's why I can't let you kill Shirou - he's naive and over idealistic, but he is also right: You need to have ideals that you are fighting for, or you're not really alive. You're just going through the motions."

"And when he dies in his pointless crusade, don't you think the people that look up to him will be disillusioned?"

Caster have Archer a puzzled look. "No. I never said I completely agreed with that idiot. And I don't think any of the other people whose lives he touches will either, because you're right, he IS a fool. But he is also right. And he inspires people to be better, even if his own personal quest is doomed to failure." Caster shrugged, "And who knows, maybe this Rin will be able to pound some sense into his head. But that all depends on you not being an asshole & stabbing him in the back."

Archer nodded again, lost in thought, "In your War, did Shirou summon Caster?"

"No, he was the master of Saber." Caster replied. It felt remarkably good to finally talk to somebody about all the secrets she had been keeping inside, and Archer was a surprisingly good listener. Unlike Zeltrech, he actually payed attention to what she said.

"Hmm, so that means you came from a very different reality than the one you are in now. A reality with different Servants and a different future. So why do you think that I am the same as the Archer that you knew?"

Caster paused, surprised yet again. Apparently she had not thought this through as well as she thought she had.,

"True, I think Shirou is an idiot, but that is because he is one. I have no need to kill him." Archer concluded.

Caster considered that, "Why do you think the other Archer killed Shirou?"

Archer stood silently for a while, "Personal reasons, which are now irrelevant." he turned to look at Caster, "And maybe they always were." He smiled down at Caster.

TOHSAKA was surprised at how close Archer was standing. They were still standing like that when Rin walked out, "Ok, I'm done. How much longer before the attunement is finished?"

Caster almost leaped away from Archer, blushing furiously "ahm, we should give it a few more minutes, to be on the safe side.." She cast a furtive glance at Archer before walking to the other side of the house.

Rin rolled her eyes, muttering "She's such a Tsundere".

-FAR-FAR-

"Where do we start? This place is huge?" Rin said as the three rescuers stepped through the wall into the mansion (Courtesy of a shimmering blue portal made by Caster).

Archer eyed the giant foyer, with its grand staircase leading up, and a balcony running all around the periphery. And the whole place was covered with filigree and decorative carvings. It looked like a piece of the Versailles, or some other European castle that had been transplanted into Japan. "Knowing Illya, they're upstairs."

Rin quirked an eyebrow at Archer's slip of the tongue. "Ok, then lets go."

Rin was almost to the stairs when the blond girl in question stepped out from behind a statue on the balcony overlooking the foyer. "Did you really think you could sneak into MY home without me knowing? You might be Servant Caster, but I am a von Einzbern." She turned to aside to a spot of empty air. "Saber, kill them."

The air shimmered and was no longer empty, as Hercules materialized, "As you command." He leaped forward, sword whipping back to cleave the three intruders in one blow.

"Caster, NOW!" Archer yelled as he leaped to intercept.

Caster released her most potent reinforcement on Archer. But unlike the the sort of spells that Archer used, which increased his strength and speed to the limits that his body could tolerate, Caster's enchantment let Archer move without crossing the intervening space.

As Archer blocked Saber's attack and countered with his own strike, his swords appeared to teleport from place to place. And as Archer increased his own personal reinforcement, the swords appeared to be in two, sometimes three places at once.

Saber blocked all the attacks. "You are fast, little man. I am impressed. And your courage in the face of your impending doom is truly worthy of a Hero." Hercules's strike powered through Archer's defense, forcing the smaller man to throw himself out of the way. Saber was far stronger than Archer (Or any other Servant. Ever), and his speed was blinding.

' _Uh. How can a side of beef so large move so fast?'_ Archer got back on guard as Saber cautiously moved in, "Caster, Rin capture Illya. She can tell us where Shirou is."

Caster flew up, "No, Rin - go find Shirou - I can deal with one little girl."

As Rin ran up the stairs, the 'one little girl' jutted out her arms at Caster, and a whole flock of bird homunculi flew out of her sleeves. Caster gestured, and floating blue panels encircled her. The first few birds smashed into the panels and ceased to exist, but the others stopped and darted around, trying to circle past the portals to nowhere. As they did, they seemed to become disoriented, flying in circles. Several actually got so turned around that they began to attack Illya. "Tell me where Shirou is, and I will let you live"

"LET me live?" Illya asked, incredulous, "when Saber is mere moments away from turning your precious ally into a thin red-coated smear? I think not!" She followed up the trash talk with a blast of lightning from her remaining homunculi.

The lightning all swerved, as if the space between the birds and Caster had been twisted into a pretzel. Illya had to jump aside as several blasts struck where she had been standing moments ago.

"You don't understand, little girl. I am servant Caster. Even when I was alive, my skills far surpassed those of any other modern magus, and now with the raw power of a Servant, there is no way you can be a match for me." Caster taunted.

"Oh, please. Leysritt!" As Illya called out the name, her maid leaped down from the top of support column, swinging a halberd at Caster.

Caster just had a moment to wonder what on earth she had been doing up there as she redirected the blue portal to block the attacking maid.

-FAR-FAR-

"Shirou!" Rin burst into a bedroom, as the red headed teen staggered groggily out of the bed.

"Wha..? Oh, Rin. " Shirou tried to get his bearings, but his head refused to stop swimming.

"Shirou, didn't anybody ever tell you not to go places with strange girls? Come on" Rin grabbed his arm and led him out of the room. "I dispelled the ensorcelment on you, but it will take a few more minutes to fade completely." Even in this rather tense moment, Rin couldn't help but notice how well muscled Shirou's arm was under her hand.

-FAR-FAR-

Archer leaped aside from Saber's attack, darted behind him, and lashed out with four simultaneous blows at Hercules unprotected back.

Saber blocked all but one, and that one only left a thin scratch on his side, despite having enough force behind it to cleave a tree.

"I am the bone of my sword" Archer Traced Caliburn and smashed it down on Hercules' arm, leaving a gash. It healed instantly as the larger hero punched Archer with the pommel of his sword, creating space between them.

As Saber drew his sword back, Archer continued his Aria " Steel is my body and fire is my blood," He ducked under Saber's sword, " I have created over a thousand blades," He blocked an attack with Durandal, "Unknown to Death, Nor known to Life," His counter attack missed, "Have withstood pain to create many weapons," Saber leaped in for a powerful smash, forcing Archer to call forth Rho Aias, " I have no regrets. This is the only path, " Archer paused and took up a ready stance. Saber narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "So as I pray, Unlimited Blade Works."

The world flared red, and changed to a sword studded plain. As Saber shifted to a defensive guard, Archer leaped forward, stabbing Saber from the front with Durandal, in the back with Kusanagi, chopping a leg with Caliburn, stabbing with Gae Bolg, throwing Kanshou and Bakuya and more, all simultaneously.

-FAR-FAR-

"This way!" Rin led Shirou down the corridor, back the way she had come, _'this place is huge! why on earth would any person need this much space?'_ The waste offended her sensibilities. Of course, her own mansion was also far too big for a single person, but never let it be said that Tohsaka was impartial. Her school idol persona wasn't ALL fake.

"Uhm, Rin, I'm fine now. You can let go."Shirou gently pulled his arm out of Rin's grasp as they approached the stairs.

-FAR-FAR-

Illya staggered as reality around her warped. The balcony was now a maze of distortions, portals and pocket dimensions.

At the same time, Leysritt tried to close with Caster, but each time she took a step towards the Servant of the Spell, she found herself further away. She dodged around a blue portal and finally got a clear shot at Caster's back. But as she swung her halberd, it somehow got tangled with the suite of armor standing across the balcony. As she stumbled, trying to avoid falling down, she staggered into Illya, knocking her down. "I'm sorry, Illyasviel-sama!"

Caster smirked as the two tried to straighten themselves out. "And that is what happens when you challenge a Servant." She raised her hand to strike the pair down with a blast of lightning when she felt a sharp pain in her side.

Shirou and Rin had just reached the balcony overlooking the foyer when they saw a hooded and cloaked women slam a dagger into Caster's back. As Caster collapsed at her feet, a faint smile could be seen on the woman's face.


	4. Chapter 4

"Aarg!" Shirou collapsed in agony as the Command Seals on his arm writhed and ripped off.

"Come my Servant. Let us go home." Caster and the woman who had stabbed her faded from sight.

"Let her go!' Shirou charged forward, tracing forth Kanshou and Bakuya, like he had seen Archer do. Shirou had done Tracing before. The item never lasted more than a few minutes, But that would be long enough.

"Shirou stop - she must be Assassin!"

Shirou stopped, but only because his target had disappeared. At the same time Illya gathered herself back up, "Oni-chan, it is rude to leave without saying good bye."

Rin pulled out a pair of gems, "Yeah, well, this is goodbye!"

"No, stop!" Shirou interposed himself between Rin and her intended target, "Don't attack her - she's my sister!"

"Your sister?!" Rin asked incredulously.

"Luke, I am your father."

"What?" Everybody pivoted to look as Archer materialized, bruised and bleeding, but looking smug.

"Oh, sorry. I thought we were quoting Star Wars." He made small shooing gesture with his hand, "Go back to whatever you were doing."

Illya and her maid looked cautiously at the injured Servant.

"She's an enemy Master. She's a threat to you." Rin tried to step around Shirou.

"Not anymore. I killed Saber."

Illya's eyes widened as she turned towards Archer, "But not for long. Hercules has 12 lives."

"And can I tell you what a bitch it was killing him a dozen times over?" Archer stretched his back, "Sorry about the swearing. Where's Caster?"

"Gone - Assassin stabbed her and then they both disappeared."

The smile slid off of Archer's face, and he swore again. "Assassin must have a Noble Phantasm that steals control of a Servant. At least Caster is still alive, but I don't know what effect that kind of enslavement will have on her mind."

"I don't care about her mind, my concern is that she will decide to join Assassin," Rin retorted.

"She won't," Shirou burst out, at the same time as Archer said, "There is only so long any servant can resist a Command Seal."

Nobody seemed certain what to do next. "Let's head home. we'll take it from there." Shirou turned to his sister, "I am sorry we made a mess of your home. I would like to talk more, after this is all done."

Illya smiled, "I would like that as well." But something in her eyes said that it would never be.

Shirou stood there, not certain what to say, until he finally turned and started down the stairs. Illya continued to stand on the balcony, looking lost.

The trip back took much longer - the distance that took two servants (and one human passenger) about a half hour to traverse took four times that long for two humans walking.

Finally, Archer broke the silence. "We need a plan for how we're going to get Caster back" Despite looking like he had just wrestled with a steamroller and lost, he had materialized and was walking along side them. "But I am too drained of prana to do anything further tonight."

"Then dematerialize, baka! You will recharge faster!"

Archer gave Rin an annoyed look, "Sometimes, when there is nothing else you can do, walking helps with the pain."

She glared at him. She wasn't certain what he was talking about, but it was clearly wrong.

Archer sighed, "But you are correct" and faded from view.

"Baka" Rin repeated. Seriously, what was going through her servant's head? He should be happy that they had scored a major victory.

"Thank you for not giving up on Caster," Shirou pronounced.

Rin frowned, "I wish I could, but if we don't get her back, Assassin will turn Caster to her side, and then we will be facing two Servants. And a Caster / Assassin combination would be deadly."

It was eleven o'clock when they finally reached the Emiya residence. Rin had again tagged along to Shirou's house, but was very subdued.

"Sempai?" As Shirou opened the door, he was confronted by a sleepy looking Sakura quickly getting up off of the couch, "Is everything ok?"

"I'm Ok, Caster is not. How come you're here?" Shirou was too emotionally wrung out for a long explanation.

"We were supposed to go up to scout out Ryuudou temple, remember? Issei waited until dark, but when you didn't show up, I, ah, persuaded him to go home."

"And you waited up for me?"

Sakura blushed, "I was worried. We didn't know what had happened to you." She gave a huge yawn. Rin watched the two teens, and quietly slipped out of the living room, heading down the hall to where she had stayed before.

' _Don't you want to stay and plan strategy?'_ Archer sent silently.

"No, I'm also too tired. We'll talk tomorrow." Rin replied. Besides, Sakura looked so happy to see Shirou, she didn't want to interrupt. Except, it would maybe have been better if she had been the one to stay with Shirou.

' _That's what you get for not working out. I noticed Shirou doesn't seem too tired. He's actually in good shape.'_ Archer said silently as he floated at Rin's shoulder

' _Yeah, I noticed that too,_ ' Rin sat down on the futon. She froze as she replayed her words _, 'I mean that he didn't seem tired, not that he's in really good shape…'_

' _I didn't say anything."_

' _Baka. I can hear you smirking. Go stand watch on the roof and give me some privacy.'_

-FAR-FAR-

"My step sister didn't mean me any harm - she just kidnapped me because she wanted to get to know me better. Caster, Archer and Rin rescued me." Shirou was explaining the days events to Sakura. He was clearly not bothered by being kidnapped, and instead was more concerned for Caster, "You should go get some sleep. You look wiped," Shirou steadied the younger girl as she wobbled slightly. "Why don't you stay over in one of the empty rooms? I have plenty of space."

"No, I.. I don't want to trouble you for another night."

"And it isn't safe for you to be walking home at this hour, especially in your exhausted state."

Sakura looked like she wanted to argue some more, but she was swaying, and almost asleep on her feet. Shirou put an arm around her back and half led, half carried her to the guest room. Afterwards, Shirou went back to the kitchen and fixed himself some tea.

"Can't sleep?"

Shirou almost leaped out of his skin, spilling most of the tea as he whirled to face the speaker.

"Archer? what are you doing here - I thought you were exhausted? And where is Tohsaka?"

"Rin went straight to sleep, so I figured I'd pay you a visit. How come you're awake? I don't want you being half assed tomorrow when we go get Caster."

"Whatever Illya did to me, it threw off my sleep schedule. i don't feel the least bit tired."

"Good, because I'm here to teach you some magecraft."

Shirou shrugged embarrassedly, "You're welcome to try, but my old man tried, and nothing seemed to stick."

"That's because he was showing you the wrong magics. What I'll show you will be as easy as breathing. Come on." Archer led the way to Shirou's shed, "I will show you how to trace Swords."

"I already know how to do tracing. It's not terribly useful"

"Oh? That's good, but I'll show you how to make copies of Noble Phantasms."

In the next two hours, Shirou learned more useful magecraft than he had in the preceding two years. It was like filling shelves with books - Archer would trace a Noble Phantasm, and Shirou would duplicate it, filing it away in his mind for future use. Then Archer would go on to the next sword, and so on.

-FAR-FAR-

"Sempai, I want to help" Shirou, Sakura and Rin were walking to school the following day, and Shirou had just mentioned his plan to find and rescue Caster.

"It's ok - you don't have to." Shirou tried to dissuade the usually shy and quiet girl.

"But it will be dangerous if you do something like that on your own."

"That's exactly why I don't want you to get involved - I'm worried you'll get hurt. Besides, I won't be on my own - I'll have Tohsaka and her Servant with me." Shirou pointed to Rin, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the walk.

Sakura stopped, forcing Shirou to also stop, "What?"

"Fine. I won't help you." Sakura tuned and walked off, leaving behind a confused Shirou. On the one hand, he felt he should run after Sakura and try to make amends for whatever had upset her, but on the other hand, she had finally agreed to do as he asked. If he talked to her more, she might change her mind, and he couldn't bear the thought of her getting injured.

As Shirou turned to continue on to school, Rin grabbed his arm, "Do you trust Sakura?"

"Well, yeah."

"Then trust her on this." Rin sped up and headed into school, leaving Shirou on his own.

-FAR-FAR-

"Emiya, are you ok?" Issei was the first to meet him (In part because the school was still half empty - Shirou always arrived early).

"Yeah, I'll tell you all about my misadventures over lunch, but the long and short of it is I have more family than I had thought. But right now I need to figure out any leads on where Servant Assassin could be hiding out. She kidnapped Caster. Are you certain that there is nothing unusual going on up on Ryuudou temple?"

Isseis eyes got big. "I wish I could help, but no, nothing there has changed in the past few weeks." As Issei walked with Shirou, he sighed, "I don't understand how you get into these things, Shirou. Last year you spent three days in Akatsuka's attic during the hottest days of July. And now this."

"That was different. Akatsuka asked me to help him rewire his house."

"And you did a good job of it. But you know that an electrician would have charged 50,000 yen for that. At least."

Shirou scowled, not quite understanding what Issei was getting at. "This isn't some underclassman that needs a little help. This time, lives are at stake. I can't just walk away."

"I'm not saying you should," Issei stopped in front of the Student council room. "All I'm saying is you should be careful. Especially of that Tohsaka witch. And I was right about her being a witch, wasn't I?"

"Yes, yes." Shirou smiled, ' _He's never going to let that go, is he?_ ' "We'll meet for lunch?"

"Yeah, and in the mean time, I'll keep my ears open for any rumors of odd goings on."

"Thanks, you're a good friend."

-FAR-FAR-

As the school day drew to a close, Shirou was no closer to figuring anything out. He still didn't know where Assassin was based. He wasn't certain what to do about Sakura. Or about Tohsaka - that girl kept glaring at him. Issei at least had done his best to be helpful without trying to put himself in harms way.

-FAR-FAR-

' _Ask him out, already.'_

"What!" Rin started at the silent message.

' _You keep staring at Shirou any more, and you'll burn a hole through his head. You two are already working together, so why not ask him out? At the least you won't be so distracted all the time.'_ Archer felt weird playing matchmaker for Rin and his younger self. But if what Caster said was true, it might save the world. And besides, Rin was getting seriously annoying.

' _You stay out of this. You don't know anything. I am NOT interested in that second rate magus.'_ She didn't mention the real reason that she wasn't going to make a move on Shirou - Sakura. Sakura was… there was something wrong there. She hid it well, but Sakura was too much like Rin for her to keep it secret from the Tohsaka heir. Sakura was unhappy. And if that idiot could bring a little joy to her existence, Rin wasn't going to interfere with their friendship.

Archer just rolled his eyes.

-FAR-FAR-

As soon as class let out, Shirou made his way to Sakura's locker, only to find that she had already left. So a few minutes later, he also made his way out and headed towards the Matou home. It was a longish walk, as they lived in the foreigners section, an upscale neighborhood on the edge of town. It was actually just a couple of streets over from where the Tohsaka mansion was as well.

' _I'm not going to apologize for trying to keep her safe. I'm just going to apologize for hurting her feelings._ ' Shirou wasn't certain why Sakura had gotten so upset that morning, but he wanted to - no, needed to - fix it. it had been gnawing away at him all day. And she was obviously still upset with him if she had rushed home without waiting to walk part way with him.

Shirou just wished he knew WHY she was so angry.

-FAR-FAR-

It was already getting dark as he approached the street that Sakura lived on. Shirou had just reached the corner when he heard the sound of growling and saw a flurry of motion as a pack of wild dogs attacked somebody right in front of Sakura's house

Shirou ran towards them. "Trace On" He pronounced, like Archer had showed him. He felt the slight burn as prana poured through his arms to produce a pair of Chinese broadswords.

As he got closer, he saw that the dogs were attacking a man in blue - it was Lancer. Despite his speed, he was hard pressed as the dogs appeared to be rabid, attacking without heed of injury.

Shirou stopped and watched. Maybe this was a good time to take Issei's advice and just stay out of it. This wasn't his fight.

But then he saw Sakura hiding behind a pair of garbage cans at the edge of the battle, and a pair of dogs had lost interest in Lancer and were sniffing her way. Shirou darted forward, "Hey, yah!' he called out, trying to draw them away from Sakura. Unfortunately, he was more successful than he intended: Those two dogs, as well as several that previously been attacking Lancer, turned to leap on him.

Shirou reinforced himself and just barely deflected the first attacker. He tried to keep the others back with swings of his swords. The dogs were more cautious with him than with Lancer, as his weapon was more effective against them.

"Thanks for the assist, kid. Ciao!" Lancer took the opportunity to retreat, leaving Shirou facing the entire pack.

As Shirou struggled to keep the dogs away, Sakura grabbed a shard of broken glass from the trash and sliced her arm so that it bled. "Leave him alone!" She flung droplets of her blood at the dogs. Whenever a dog was struck by the blood they yipped and howled in pain as the blood dissolved away their flesh, leaving behind a seething pit of shadow in its place.

"Are you ok, Sempai?" Sakura ran up to Shirou as the last dog turned tail and fled.

"That's my line," Shirou looked anxiously at her bleeding arm. Sakura tried to hide it behind her body, but he gently took it and pulled it out into the light. "We need to clean this before it festers."

"You don't need to worry. My wounds don't fester." Sakura replied, turning away slightly as she applied pressure to the cut to stop the bleeding.

"Well… ok. Um.. Lets get you inside, and I'll help you bind your arm."

Sakura smiled over her shoulder at him, "it's ok, sempai, I can handle it from here."

Shirou sighed in frustration, "I came out here to apologize for pushing you away when you were trying to help. And now you're doing the exact same thing."

Sakura looked guiltily at Shirou, then nervously at her house, "I guess.. I guess you can come in." She led him into the home. It was the first time Shirou had been inside, despite having been friends with first Shinji and then Sakura for almost five years. The decor was richly stained wood and dark, Victorian style wallpaper. Sakura led him to a sitting room off of the front entrance. "Please wait here. I'll be right back with the first aid kit."

Shirou sat. The room was poorly lit by two small lights to either side of an ornate fireplace. The only furnishings were two old armchairs and a set of empty floor to ceiling bookcases. The house was eerily quiet. _'This house feels like some old person, waiting to die.'_

A few moments later, Sakura was back. "Here" she gave him the first aid kit. As he cleaned and bound up her arm, Shirou asked, "How are you holding up, with Shinji being... gone?"

"I'm ok. We were never close. Especially now, with how he had been chasing girls all the time." Sakura didn't look at Shirou as she answered, for fear that he would see the joy in her eyes, joy that Shinji was finally dead.

"Oh? And your grandfather? Is he at work?" Shirou tied off the bandage around her arm.

Sakura shrugged, "Thank you your help. But you should go." She stood and made shooing motions towards the door.

Shirou frowned in puzzlement. Sakura was usually so warm and friendly. This tense, anxious girl was a stranger. _'Is she having family problems?'_ "Ok. Um, if you ever need a place to stay, you're welcome at my house. And Fuji-ni can also sleep over, if that would make you feel better."

"Thank you," Sakura smiled as she walked him out the door. As they stepped out of the house, She cast one more nervous glance over her shoulder, "Actually, why don't I come over right now. That way I can help you with what we talked about earlier."

Shirou quirked an eyebrow. He wasn't certain what was going on, but there was no way he was going to turn Sakura away under these conditions, "Ok, great!" And turned to head for home.

Sakura brightened visible as she followed.

They were halfway to his house when Sakura finally said, "Sempai - my Grandfather also has a Servant. He has Servant Berserker."

"Oh… Was that why Lancer was there?"

"Yes. The dogs are somehow connected to Berserker.:

"We'll discuss that when we get home." Shirou sighed, _'This is getting complicated. I thought being a Hero would be simple.'_

-FAR-FAR-

"I have made up a list of potential bases of operation for Assassin or other Servants" Tohsaka sat at Shirou's dining room table. Shirou and Sakura sat on the other side, and Archer leaned nonchalantly against the wall, looking bored. She passed her notes over to Shirou for him to take a look. As Sakura and Shirou went over the list, Rin watched the two of them, her lips pressed tight to keep from saying anything. On the one hand she was happy that Sakura had a friend like Shirou, on the other, she wanted him to pay attention to HER that way.

"Issei's already checking out Ryuudou Temple. What about the sewers? Are we going to have to go crawling in there?"

"Ugh. No. I sent some familiars to check them out. And if there IS a Servant down there, they are probably by the river, near the water treatment plant. There's a lot more room in those tunnels.

"At least we know where Berserker is."

"We know where berserker WAS. I doubt Zoukan is dumb enough to stay in his home when he knows Servants are looking for him."

"Actually, he lives in the basement." Sakura volunteered. She had mostly sat quietly at Shirou's side, leaning slightly towards him.

"Basement? Isn't it kind of dark and damp down there?" Shirou asked

"His body is made up of worms. He doesn't mind," Sakura replied lightly, as if he had just said something completely normal, like 'the sky is blue'.

"Worms!?" Rin looked horrified, "How does he retain his sentience?"

"I.. I am not certain. I really would prefer not to think about that." Sakura whispered.

Rin gave the younger girl a hard look. ' _There's more here than she's saying.'_

There was a knock on the front door. Shirou rose to deal with it.

"Sorry I'm late" Issei came in, "I looked around the Temple like you asked, but there is nothing out of the ordinary. I even checked in the storage building." He sat down at the table next to Shirou. "I got a little delayed because Kuzuki-sensei's fiance offered me hot chocolate, and I didn't want to be rude."

Shirou looked surprised. "He never mentioned having a fiance." But it really wasn't that surprising, given how private their homeroom teacher was. He was the polar opposite of Fujimura.

Rin looked troubled for some reason, "Where is Kuzuki living?"

"Oh, at the temple." Issei answered, but was cut short by a cough. "Sorry. I think I'm coming down with something."

Rin cast a concerned glance at Shirou, but he was busy passing the tissues to Issei. Sakura on the other hand matched her sister's expression. "And where does Kuzuki-sensei's fiance live?" she asked tremulously.

Cough, "Oh, she lives with him at the Temple." cough.

"And you didn't think that was unusual enough to mention?" Rin asked.

"Now that you mention it," cough, cough. Issei started to convulse. The other teens rose to their feet and Shirou tried to catch his friend before he collapsed.

Which is when the spray of orange smoke burst from his mouth.

"Out of the room!" Rin yelled, as she ran for the exit.

Archer grabbed Issei and leaped out through the window, smashing it open with his shoulder..

Shirou pulled Sakura along as he ran for the kitchen and out the back door.

-FAR-FAR-

It was several minutes before everybody managed to reconvene outside.

"Issei is dead - his internal organs were liquified when he spewed forth that gas" Archer pronounced. Sakura hugged Shirou to comfort him for the loss of his friend.

It took Shirou a few moments to compose himself, but he then rasped, "Are you two ok? I heal pretty fast, so the gas didn't affect me." Cough, "much."

"It was some sort of corruption spell" Sakura volunteered, sounding perfectly normal, "But such things do not affect me." She did not mention the reason for her immunity - that the Crest worms injected in her body were a so much stronger force of corruption that they had simply destroyed the gas as it came in contact with her body.

Which is the point when Rin collapsed.

"Tohsaka?" Shirou ran over to the other girl.

"I'm fine" she rasped quietly. She tried to stand back up. "Ok, maybe I'm not."

Archer leaned over his Master, "She inhaled some of the gas. Enough so that it has begun to destroy her from the inside out. We need to counter this quickly, or she will die in a few days."

Rin started coughing, and Shirou took her hand to help steady her. "Can you do anything?"

"Unfortunately, I am a force of destruction." Archer frowned, "I lack any healing skills, except for self healing." He looked up at Sakura, "How about you, Matou-san?"

"I…" Sakura began and stopped, continuing only in her mind, _'but I don't WANT to heal her.'_ She wasn't certain if she could force her Crest worms to eat away the corruption in Rin's body. It would not be easy. And was saving Rin really worth the effort? She looked at Shirou holding her sister's hand. ' _She'll just steal Sempai away from me'_. Several seconds passed in silence. "I think so." But if she didn't try, she wouldn't deserve to have him in the first place.

"Sempai, can I borrow a knife?"

"Trace on," Shirou created a small dagger from thin air.

"This will… My magic is pretty horrible, so please don't be shocked." Sakura said, looking at Shirou intently, "Please sempai, No matter what happens, just let me finish, and then…" She looked away. Sakura took the knife and cut a gash on the inside of Rin's forearm. She then made a similar cut on her own, and pressed the two bleeding wounds together. "Hurry, bind them together.

Archer handed Shirou a length of cloth, which he wrapped around the girls' arms. For a few moments, nothing happened, except that Sakura sat at Rin's side, eyes unfocused as she concentrated on some internal struggle. She chanted under her breath, so quietly that Shirou couldn't make out the aria.

Then Rin began to convulse. Shirrou and Archer both quickly pressed down on her, so that her arm would remain in contact with Sakura's. This went on for five, ten then fifteen minutes, as Sakura sat impassively at the other girls side, and Shirou and Archer struggled to keep her immobile.

Finally, Rin lay limp, and Sakura's eyes opened. Shirou was startled to see them completely black, with no iris or whites visible. "It's done. You can carry her to bed now."

Archer went into the Emiya mansion and returned a moment later, "It's safe to go inside" He picked up Rin and carried her inside.

-FAR-FAR-

"I think it is safe to say that Assassin is staying up in Ryuudou Temple," Archer volunteered. He had just returned from taking Issei's body to the hospital, entering him as an 'unidentified young male'. Shirou hated the idea of just abandoning his friend like that, but they couldn't do anything to call attention to themselves until they had dealt with Assassin.

"She must have some sort of spell or bounded field that makes people not notice her" Sakura added. They were again sitting in Shirou's dining room, except for Rin, who was resting in her bed.

"We should make our move tonight, before she realizes that her assassination attempt failed." Shirou was barely containing the anger boiling inside of him. Issei had been a good man as well as a close friend. He shouldn't have been part of all this. It was his, Shirou's, fault for getting him involved.

Archer nodded, "agreed"

"So let's go!" Shirou stood up, followed by Sakura. "Are you certain you want to come?" He desperately didn't want her to place herself in jeopardy. Not after what had happened to Issei. But... it was wrong to put his own desires ahead of others, and Issei had been her friend as well.

Sakura nodded, looking more determined than she felt as she channeled her inner Tohsaka. "Just let me grab a bow from the Dojo"

"Then I am glad to have your help." Shirou smiled at the younger girl and took her hand.

* * *

Notes:

I had intended for Issei to play a big part in this story, but then he got himself killed. I was really surprised at that, but in retrospect, I really shouldn't have been - he was just a regular teenager, without any special abilities to keep him safe.


	5. Chapter 5

As the trio arrived at the top of the stair leading to the temple, Shirou took the lead, sniffing for bounded fields. Literally.

"This way - There is a magic residue over here." Shirou led the trio towards a row of guest houses built against the the cliff face, at the far side of the temple compound.

They were almost to the center cottage when, in a flash, a person leaped from the underbrush. His motions were swift and silent, and if his attack had landed, Shirou would have lost his head.

But instead, the attacker was forced to dodge a Chinese broadsword that had interposed itself between him and his target, courtesy of Archer. At the same time, there was a pulse of magic, and the sound of chanting could be heard from the cottage.

"Archer, Sakura - find out what is going on inside. I got this" Shirou projected his own pair of Kanshou and Bakuya as he took a guard stance facing Kuzuki.

Archer nodded and kicked in the door to the cottage. Inside, the back wall of the building was missing. In its place was a tunnel leading deep into the mountain, with the chanting echoing out of it.

-FAR-FAR-

Rin struggled to get up _'Those idiots left without me!'_ She had picked up enough of the conversation in the other room through her link with Archer to know what the plan had been. Unfortunately, she had fallen asleep (she preferred to call it that rather than 'passed out') before she could get up and give them a piece of her mind.

She reached one of the jewels in her bag and activated it, draining it through a powerful healing spell. "Those half-trained idiots. They forgot to ask the one true Magus in the group if she had any healing spells!"

She grabbed Shirou's bike from the shed. ' _How undignified!'_

-FAR-FAR-

Shirou blocked another attack from Kuzuki-sensei. Shirou was faster and stronger than the teacher, but not by much, and Kuzuki had more experience. He came in hard and fast, a pair of daggers in his hands. Shirou managed to keep him back by keeping his longer weapons always in motion, making looping swings that swirled around him. His opponent, on the other hand, made sharp, darting attacks that sought to get in through the spaces between swings.

' _Since when did my homeroom teacher turn into a psycho-warrior?_ ' There was yelling and the sound of explosions from inside the cottage / mountain, but outside the battle was silent, as Shirou had to use all his concentration to keep up with his opponent, and the severe looking teacher was completely silent.

' _I need to get in there and help!'_ Shirou thought as he barely avoided another attack.

-FAR-FAR-

Inside the mountain, Archer's swords danced as he tried to keep Assassin from getting in close enough to kill Sakura. They were in a large, stalagmite filled cave, and Assassin was using the rock formations for cover, darting out to attack from unexpected directions. Each time, Archer just barely had time to deflect her attack before she disappeared again.

Assassin was no match for him in a straight fight, but she never stayed long enough for him to retaliate. _'She must be hoping for a one hit kill.'_ Archer got a closer look at her weapon in the next exchange, as she came from the top of a rock outcropping, trying to hit him from above. _'Ah. Rule Breaker. She's hoping to add me to her collection,_ ' Archer smirked.

Meanwhile, Sakura had dropped her bow and was trying to get past Caster's Reality Disjunction. Caster was chained to the wall by one wrist, and looked to be heavily impaired, almost drunk, as she struggled against Assassin's command seal. But nevertheless, she cast spells targeting Sakura and Archer.

Sakura lashed out at the portals and distortions with streamers of inky blackness that burst forth from her hands. As they hit caster's spells, they ate away at them.

Caster was not trying very hard to maintain her spells - as soon as Sakura blocked a spell, she let it dissolve and cast another instead of trying to overcome Sakura's counters. Which was fortunate, as the teen was nowhere near powerful enough to stand up to Caster head on.

-FAR-FAR-

The Servants were locked in a stalemate. Neither was able to score a hit on the other. It was clear that whoever made the first mistake would lose.

Assassin stepped out from a patch of inky blackness and stabbed at Archer's back, but he whirled and blocked with the flat of his sword. As he brought the other one around, Assassin stepped back into the shadow and disappeared.

"Aah!" somebody screamed in pain. Archer's attention shot in the direction of the yell, as he tried to tell if it was Sakura or Caster. Both possibilities were equally bad. During that moment of distraction, he saw motion out of the corner of his eye.

Archer tried to hop awkwardly out of the way as Assassin darted in from the side, but Rule Breaker plunged into his side. Assassin smiled in victory, "Now you are mine!" She held on tight to Archer with her free hand as Rule breaker did it's magic. From a distance, it looked like a lover's embrace.

Rin was half way up the stairs to Ryuudou temple when she collapsed from a sharp pain in her arm, like burning lead being poured on her hand and running up her arm. She watched as her command seals faded away, _'oh, this is bad.'_

The moment the Command Seals appeared on Assassin's arm, she pronounced, "now, kill the girl!" she smiled up into her new Servant's face expectantly.

"Assassin, did you know that I'm not a Saber class Servant?" Archer asked calmly.

"Eh?" Assassin paused and frowned at the odd non-sequitur.

Archer stepped back from her embrace and brought both his swords in a flat arc in front of him, making a scissoring motion across Assassin's neck.

"I'm an Archer, and we have Independent Action." He finished as Assassin's head fell off of her shoulders and bounced twice.

Kuzuki felt Assassin die through his Command Seals. It was just a momentary distraction, and it usually wouldn't have bothered him, but he was out of practice. He had gone soft, become a teacher, and for just a moment, he mourned the loss of the woman he had come to care for.

A moment was all it took for Shirou's broadsword to lop off his outstretched hand. Before he could recover, Shirou's other sword came up and across his torso.

Shirou looked at the body of his teacher dispassionately. He wished he could have saved him. _'But being a Hero means that somebody out there is the Villain.'_

-FAR-FAR-

As Caster slumped to the ground, Sakura looked over at Archer to see if he was ok.

"Matou-san, you still have a command seal?" Archer asked as he walked up, "Please take Caster as your servant."

"Maybe we should let her die, then Shirou would be done with this Holy Grail War." Sakura countered.

"Not going to happen," Archer growled. The two continued to stand like that, deadlocked with Caster slumped in front of them, as Shirou ran in.

"Caster! We have to do something before she fades away!"

Sakura took one look at Shirou and turned to Caster, "I ask, are you my Servant?"

"Yes" Caster replied in a hoarse whisper. The Command Seal on Sakura's arm flared, and life returned to Caster's eyes. "Thank you." She turned to Archer, "What about you? How long can you go without a contract?"

"Long enough," Archer smiled.

Caster took another look at Archer. He could have made a contract with Sakura instead of her, but instead he had all but guaranteed his own loss in favor of helping her. _'Maybe I don't know him as well as I thought.'_

Sakura glanced down at her arm, and then at her new Servant in wonder. She had a servant. Neither Rin nor Shirou had one anymore. Now she had the power - they couldn't continue in the Holy Grail war without her help.

"Archer?" Rin staggered into the cave and collapsed.

"Rin? What are you doing here? And why are you out of bed?" Sakura turned in surprise, rushing over to the other girl to help her up.

Shirou took her other side, somewhat surprised at Sakura's reaction. In the past, she had always been slightly aloof towards Tohsaka, and he had assumed she disapproved of or maybe even disliked the acerbic school idol.

"You can't just leave me behind. I can be of help!" Rin slurred. Apparently racing up the mountain after casting a powerful healing spell had been too much for her.

' _Huh, that sounds familiar,'_ Shirou thought, as Sakura gently replied, "Rin-Sempai, you are no longer a Master. You don't need to be here. I will take care of everything."

"Let's get out of here" Caster stood up and cast a spell that lifted all of them into the air, "This place disgusts me."

-FAR-FAR-

"Well, that just leaves Lancer and Berserker" Rin sipped her tea. The three humans were seated around Shirou's dining table again.

"I say we deal with Berserker next. We know who his master is, and I think I can find where he is hiding." Sakura replied.

"Are you ok with fighting your own grandfather?" Shirou asked tentatively.

"Oh, yes. It will be no problem," came the immediate reply. Even though there was no rancor in Sakura's voice, something sounded off to Rin.

"Sakura - when you healed me - you released some sort of powerful phage into my body. Where did that come from?" Whatever magic Sakura had used had been extremely painful, and Rin had a sneaking suspicion that it had come from within Sakura, that it was something the younger girl had to live with on daily basis.

"You don't need to worry about that, Rin-sempai" Sakura replied, "But you are correct - it was something that Grandfather gifted me with."

Shirou just looked puzzled by this exchange.

-FAR-FAR-

Meanwhile, Caster and Archer were sitting on the porch, their feet dangling. "So you have given up on your wish?" Caster finally asked. There was no way that Archer could win the Holy Grail war in his current condition.

"No. But I never needed the Holy Grail for my wish to come true."

Caster turned to look at Archer, puzzled, "And what is this wish, that you can achieve of your own power?" she asked, a slight sarcastic tone creeping in. It was a defense mechanism against all those that challenged her.

"Simple. That you get your wish." Archer smiled sardonically.

Caster froze for a moment. "You aren't joking, are you?" she finally said.

Archer just smiled.

Caster frowned, "Are you hitting on me?"

-FAR-FAR-

"Hold the cup steady" Sakura instructed Shirou. He held a tea cup half full of oil under Sakura's outstretched hand. Taking a deep breath, Sakura ran through a short aria, and then pricked her finger with a knife, allowing three drops of blood to fall onto the oil. The oil sizzled and smoked for a moment.

Rin stood behind the other two, feeling very odd. She was used to being the most knowledgeable magus in any group. But here, Sakura was usurping her role, teaching (rather disturbing) new magic to Shirou. It was not an experience she much enjoyed. "I have never heard of a spell like this. Where did you learn it?"

"It is not a very useful spell," Sakura replied self-deprecatingly, "it's based on Similarity. It only works if there is a strong connection between the caster and the object of the search spell." she looked at the cup in front of her expectantly, "Give it a moment to settle down, and then the droplet should move in the direction of Grandfather."

"Unless he has a bounded field up to screen him from detection."

"Oh, there is no way he can hide from this. This spell is perfectly attuned to his magical signature." Sakura smiled mysteriously, ' _How could he hide from me? After all, a part of him is inside me.'_

The small ball of blood floated on top of the oil instead of sinking like it should have. It slowly blackened until it looked like a bead of black glass.

And then it rolled to one side and stayed there, no matter how Shirou tipped the cup.

"Let's go."

The three teens and two Servants filed out of the house, following Shirou as he piloted via the magic teacup.

Soon, they were back outside the Matou mansion.

"Really?" Rin asked, "He's that arrogant that he didn't even try to hide his base of operations?"

"Um, Tohsaka? We're still working out of my house too." Shirou interjected.

Rin rolled her eyes, "whatever".

Caster leaned over to Archer and stage-whispered, "They're such a cute couple."

Shirou's head whipped around, a denial ready on his lips when Sakura caught his arm. "Careful, don't spill the spell, sempai." She smiled to show she wasn't angry, despite her sharp tone _'I should have let her die up in the Temple._ '

Rin cast a sidelong glance at the Heroic Spirit, _'I wish Sakura had let her die up on the mountain.'_

-FAR-FAR-

"There is nobody here" Archer pronounced after they had searched the whole of the Matou house.

"He's here. He's hiding in the basement," Sakura replied after consulting the tea cup. "I'll show you." She led the group down into Zouken's magical sanctum.

Sakura could almost feel the chains that grandfather had used to constrain her life and her very being start to snap. Chains of upbringing and habit and self loathing.

She was a real magus.

SNAP

She was in charge.

SNAP

Onee-chan was following HER lead.

SNAP

Shirou was looking at her and smiling.

SNAP

Grandfather was going to die.

Oh, SNAP.

Just as they approached the bottom of the stairs, they were confronted by a pale little girl dressed in rags. She couldn't have been more than ten years old. "I'm sorry, you can't come in here." She had a delicate, elfin look.

"And who are you?" asked Archer, stepping forward.

"Why, silly, I am servant Berserker." She smiled wider than a human could, and tilted her head oddly, changing her from cute looking to disturbingly in-human. Her eyes were just a little too big, her black curls too shiny. And her hands distorted as her fingernails twisted into impossibly long claws.

Archer leaped forward without any warning, his paired swords swinging, only to be met by a growling dog. As he slashed the dog in two and landed, more of the dogs appeared from thin air, followed by other animals, ranging from raccoons to bears. All the creatures roared and foamed at the mouth as if mad. Some attacked Archer, while the others leaped for Caster and the humans.

Caster was hard pressed to stop the crazed animals - the spatial distortions didn't appear to confuse them, and only marginally slowed them down, forcing her to use strikes of lightning from her hands to destroy the vicious monsters.

Archer kicked off of a bear that was trying to grapple him, leaping backwards towards the wall. He flipped in time to push off of that as well, leaping over the whole mass of animals, straight at Berserker.

As he swung Kanshou at her, she ducked and her claw-like fingernails lashed out at Archer, scratching him lightly on the cheek. As Archer landed, the animals swarmed him, but now he was barely able to fend them off. He staggered as if drunk, and his eyes would not focus. The cut on his cheek throbbed, sending out red tendrils across his face.

"I think that's Lyssa, the Greek personification of madness," Rin called out between firing off gander shots at the animals that managed to get past Caster.

"Caster, use your portals to sweep away the animals!" Sakura commanded.

' _To cover that much area will drain my prana very quickly. I'm not certain if I can get all of them before I run out.'_ Caster replied silently.

"Do it! I can supply you with enough prana."

Blue portals appeared around Caster, and spat out in all directions. Any beast that was swept up by one disappeared. But the portals were shaped like rectangles the size of a doorway, an awkward shape to scoop up animals with. The beasts were able to dodge around them, forcing Caster to summon more and more, so that soon streams of doorways were radiating out from her, drifting across the room.

At the same time, more and more rabid creatures bust from Berzerkers shapeless rags.

Sakura strained to provide enough prana. Her reserves were depleting quickly. She took a deep breath and reached to her core, searching for the last iota of power.

As the magical duel continued, Archer tried to fight his way to Berserker, but he wasn't able to make out which way was which: the room continued to spin and tilt, and it was all he could do to defend himself against the few rabid animals that managed to get past Caster's portals.

Meanwhile, Shirou and Rin defended Caster and Sakura from crazed sparrows and streams of rats and other small animals that were able to duck around the portals.

Sakura was running out of prana. She couldn't sense any more inside her. But she knew there was more. She reached out ' _there!_ " the Crest Worms. they were made of raw magical power. She tapped into those, and pushed, pushing beyond just the worms and into all of Zoukon's vast magic reserves, feeding his prana to Caster as quickly as she could.

-FAR-FAR-

The worm mage was in hiding, his body spread out amongst all the worms hiding around the Matou property and beyond. There was no way that he could be harmed, even if his Servant was defeated.

But suddenly, his contentment was shattered as he felt a second drain on his magic reserves. Something was siphoning - no GULPING - his power.

-FAR-FAR-

Caster's eyes got big as she felt the huge swell of power coming to her. _'Now this is more like it!'_. Instead of drifting lazily, her portals began to spin around Caster, scooping everything in their path. They just barely dodged Archer and her allies.

Berserker roared in rage as she commanded her animals to carry her bodily towards Caster. As the tide of animals supporting her surged forward, she reached out with her foot-long claws, reaching for the Servant of the Spell. Each time a portal approached, she lashed out at it, shredding it into nothingness.

-FAR-FAR-

Zouken tried every trick he could think of to stem the flow of power from his body, but his servant had activated her Mad Enhancement, and was not responding to his commands. He needed to break the contract with her, but to do that he had to be incorporated into something resembling his original body.

And he wasn't even certain where that second drain was coming from. He tried cutting off those worms that were being tapped, but the drain was spreading faster than he could contain it.

Worms began to die. At first it was only the ones at the periphery of his consciousness, but then more and more, as they were drained of all power and shriveled up.

-FAR-FAR-

Berserker had smashed her way almost all the way to Caster, who was frantically alternating portals with blasts of lightning, when Shirou began pressing in on Lyssa from the side.

He chopped through the beasts supporting her, causing Berserker to stagger. Caster pressed the slight advantage, warping the space around Berserker, trying to seal her off in her own pocket universe.

-FAR-FAR-

Zouken desperately held on to the strands of his prana. He was down to his last dozen worms, and it was getting harder to think, as he lost more of himself, and more of Berserker filtered back up their link.

Another worm disappeared.

And another.

Soon he no longer remembered why he was struggling to hold on to the worms, he just knew that he had to hold on to them.

So it was with only a mild sense of disappointment that he watched his last worm shrivel and die.

-FAR-FAR-

All of a sudden, Berserker broke apart into motes of light and faded away. At the same time, Sakura collapsed.

Caster froze and turned in horror to her master. "She's not breathing!""

.

* * *

Yes, this is a 'Sakura Rising' style story. I love that genre


	6. Chapter 6

Shirou dropped his weapons and raced over to Sakura.

"Cast a healing spell on her!" Rin demanded of Caster.

"I used up my prana reserves, and Sakura's prana is drained to zero - that's why she collapsed. I can't do anything." She became incorporeal to reduce the strain on Sakura, as the drain from the Servant began to eat away at her life force.

Shirou lay Sakura out flat on her back and began rescue breathing, followed by chest compressions.

"I have plenty of prana," began Rin. But it had to be attuned to Sakura, otherwise it would do no good. She looked around frantically for any reservoirs of Sakura's prana that might have been stored in the basement. It was her workspace, after all. But there was nothing that she could see - just a table and a pair of heavy wood chairs, as well as a couple of mostly empty book shelves

It was then that her eye caught on the directional spell that Sakura had cast. More specifically, on the drop of her blood, infused with her prana, resting in the oil. Muttering an aria, Rin pulled out a small gem and held it over the cup. The gem shattered into a fine dust and fell into the cup, mixing with the blood and oil.

Rin scooped out the mixture and kneaded the honey-like liquid inside as she continued her aria. the liquid thickened into a warm paste. She then rubbed the mixture onto Sakuras' arms. The prana infused blood and the spell would attune the power in the gem to Sakura. In theory. Rin knew that at best, the procedure would be horribly inefficient, and that her sister would just get a few drops of power.

She watched as Shirou continued to perform CPR.

Sakura took a gasping breath.

Shirou sat back on his heels and watched as she began to breath on her own. After a moment, she sat up, looking a little dazed.

"Are you ok?" asked Rin.

"Yeah. A little weak, but getting better. But I don't know how much longer I can maintain Caster - until I get better, I'm going to be generating prana slower than she is draining it."

"I wish there was some way to transfer large quantities of prana from magus to magus" Archer mused, rubbing his chin as if trying to recall something he had forgotten.

Rin blushed, "Uhm, there is." Rin continued to redden until she was beet red, "I could teach you and Shirou a tantric ritual that will…"

"I know it." snapped Sakura.

"You know it?"" Rin's eyebrows crept up past her hairline _. 'Does she mean she's used it before?'_ Rin's mind froze as her image of her estranged sister as a sheltered young girl completely shattered. "Uhm, Does Shirou know the ritual too?"

"No, but I will teach him, Rin-sempai" Sakura turned to Shirou, "Please help me up."

Shirou pulled the purple haired teen to her feet. She swayed slightly, "Are you certain you're up to doing magic?"

"Yes, I'll be fine. And I'll feel much better as soon as we start the ritual." She blushed slightly, as she realized what she had said. "Come, we can use my bedroom."

She led a confused Shirou upstairs.

-FAR-FAR-

"What about Zoukan?" Rin asked, as she realized that all of them had let their guard down when Berserker died.

"I think he's gone - Berserker drained him of prana. Not certain if he's still alive, but if he is, he is so greatly weakened that he won't be a threat to anybody for a very long time." Archer replied after giving a couple of tentative sniffs at the air.

He sat down on the stairs next to Rin, and they sat awkwardly for a moment.

Rin became more and more uncomfortable. Somewhere upstairs, her sister was having sex with a boy that she kind of liked. And she wasn't certain how to feel about that, whether to be happy for Sakura's sake, or jealous for her own. And sitting next to another man while thinking about that was definitely NOT something she was going to do.

Rin got up and walked up to the first floor, "Uhm, I'm going to go get something to drink."

After she left, Archer continued to sit. A few moments later, Caster materialized, looking a little flushed. "Uhm, they have started," she muttered, embarrassed. She pretended to look through the books on the shelves.

Archer walked over to her, "are you ok?"

"Um, yeah.. I'm just getting some bleed over from Sakura's emotions through the Master / Servant link."

"Oh really?" Archer breathed into her ear.

"Hey, cut that out!" Caster pushed Archer away halfheartedly. Which is when she discovered that his hand was under her shirt. And his face was right next to hers. They stood like that for a moment. Caster's breath caught as Archer's hand began to move from her back up to her front.

One kiss couldn't hurt, could it?

The next thing she knew, their clothes were scattered all over the floor and she was lying naked on the desk, with Archer next to her. And she was... happy. Very pleasantly so.

As she luxuriated in the afterglow, Caster traced her hands across the scar over Archer's heart. A very unique, yet familiar scar. "Shirou?"

-FAR-FAR-

Rin sat hunched over in the kitchen, a hunted expression on her face, as she slowly sipped her orange juice. There were *noises* coming from the second floor. And now, there were similar noises coming from the basement.

' _How long can they keep going like that?'_

-FAR-FAR-

After they were done, Caster turned to Archer, "Shirou, how did you become a Counter Guardian?"

Archer sighed, "It's a long story." He turned to look at Caster, "Is that what you were thinking about all the time that we were, you know?"

TOHSAKA smacked him in the arm, "No, baka, but you forget how much smarter than you I am. It took me much less time to think this through to it's logical conclusion than you would expect." She smiled to take the sting out of her words, "I missed you, Shirou."

Archer grimaced, "Don't call me that. I'm not him any more" Caster quirked an eyebrow, and Archer sighed, "Too many wrong choices."

"Actually, that sounds exactly like Shirou. Beautiful ideals, horrible execution."

"Ehm," Archer got up off of the table. "Let's go see if the others are ready to go yet. We still need to deal with Lancer."

-FAR-FAR-

It wasn't too much later that Shirou and Sakura came back down stairs, holding hands. "Lets go home. I'm drained and I'm not going to be much use for the rest of the day." Everybody smirked at Shirou, "What? NO! I mean I'm drained of prana, and I won't be much use in a fight!"

"Yes, you need to get your mind out of the gutter, Rin-sempai!" Sakura frowned at Rin, "But Sempai is right - lets get out of here. I don't want to be in this house a moment longer than necessary."

The group of five made their way back to Shirou's home.

"I'll see you guys later!" Rin said awkwardly.

"No, you should come with us!" Sakura quickly countered, smiled slightly, _'That way you can see that Shirou is with me.'_

At the same time, Caster added added, "Shirou will cook dinner, and afterwards we can plan.."

"Oh, ok" Rin finally acquiesced, ' _I guess It'll be good to spend time with family.'_ Rin was grateful that Sakura seemed to be making an effort to not exclude her.

As Shirou and Sakura went into the kitchen, Caster leaned over to Rin and whispered, "Don't give up hope - you're not out of the running yet!"

Rin scowled at the servant, "This isn't a horse race. And why are you still matchmaking? Shouldn't you be worrying about your own stud?"

Caster just smirked and patted the younger Rin on the shoulder.

After dinner was served (and promptly eaten), it was time to talk strategy.

"So the only Servant left is Lancer." Rin began.

"Actually, Lancer is not the last servant." Interrupted Caster

"There is one more - Servant Archer, from the last War." finished EMYA.

"And how do you know this?" Rin asked suspiciously. Her former Servant had claimed not to know anything when he was under her command, and now he seemed to know WAY too much.

"Well," Archer began, looking slightly sheepish, "I lied a little when I said that I didn't remember anything. You see, I'm from the future."

"What?"

"How far in the future?" Rin asked, calculatingly

"One POSSIBLE future," Archer corrected, "But I am fairly certain that this is the same in both our timelines: Archer, Gilgamesh, survived the end of the previous Holy Grail war, and is now sitting back and watching the chaos, but as the war draws to a close, he will take a personal hand in it. He revels in destruction." Archer's words became somewhat heated, as his personal hatred for the man leaked through.

"Or it's possible that he, like many hedonists, has become so jaded and bored, that only pain and suffering break his ennui" corrected Caster, in full 'I am giving you the word of God' lecture mode. "The important thing is that he will try to activate the Greater Grail, to bring about mass destruction. We need to get at the Grail and render it unusable. Archer and I discussed it, and we think we can do that now."

Archer nodded, "Once we start messing with the Grail, Kirei will realize that something is going on, and will send Archer and Lancer after us, but I should be able to hold them off long enough for Caster to destroy the Grail. But the longer we wait, the lower my reserves of prana will get."

"Wait, how is Kirei involved?" demanded Rin, taking one of her trademark poses that she typically used when interrogating… uhm... asking a polite question.

"Oh, he's the master of the old Archer, and he stole Lancer from his original Master." Caster lectured.

Shirou took a close look at Caster, and then at Rin, and did a double take.

-FAR-FAR-

Later that evening, Caster had taken Sakura to Shirou's workshop to discuss 'Master Servant things', leaving Shirou in Rin's care. The two teens sat drinking tea

"Ah, Tohsaka? Have you noticed that Caster looks a little bit like you?" Shirou asked. He wasn't certain how to broach the topic, so he began by fishing around.

"Yeah, you noticed that too, huh?" Rin finished off her cup and put it down, not looking at Shirou. "And she seems to know about the future like Archer does. I wonder.. I wonder if she might be my future granddaughter or something…" Rin blushed.

"Why granddaughter?" Shirou looked puzzled.

"Because she keeps pushing us together…" Rin blushed even more, "Like maybe she's OUR granddaughter."

All of a sudden, Shirou found his tea cup very interesting, "Well, she's probably from an alternate future, like Archer, so we don't have to worry about messing up the timeline and causing a paradox.."

"Meaning…"

Shirou sighed, "Meaning I'm going to try to make things work with Sakura." He looked up at Rin, "Not just because we had sex, but because I.. because we've been close a long time, and I just didn't see it. I think… It's… I mean.." Shirou trailed off, "Why a granddaughter, not a daughter?" He finally asked.

"Because no daughter of mine would give herself to that Archer!" Rin snarled, just as glad that the awkward turn of the conversation was finished.

-FAR-FAR-

Much later that night, after all the humans were asleep (in separate beds, much to the annoyance of several individuals), Caster sat down next to Archer on the balcony. "This feels familiar."

"Hmm" Archer put an arm around her.

"EMYA, in your timeline, did we have a relationship?" She finally asked.

Archer leaned back, drawing away slightly. "Yeah. We dated for a couple of years, before my foolish ideals drew me away to try to save the world. We stayed in touch even afterwards, but we rarely saw one another, as I kept traveling all over the world, and your counterpart was hard at work in the Clocktower" Archer turned to look at Caster, so gauge her reaction, "It was one of my more stupid decisions."

"Baka, all your decisions are stupid, yet they somehow work out for the best." Caster smiled.

"My breaking up with other-Rin was for the best?"

"Yes. Otherwise I would have never met you."

"Convoluted and irrelevant," sighed Archer. "After the Holy Grail war, you'll go back to the Throne of Heroes and forget all about this.

"Maybe not." Caster paused, but seeing Shirou's questioning look, continued, "I am the Servant Caster. And I am probably the most powerful Caster to ever be summoned for one of these stupid things. I was able to warp reality even BEFORE I became a Servant."

SHIROU smiled, "Yeah, you do that whenever you talk."

"Hey!" Caster elbowed Archer in the side. One thing led to another, and it wasn't long before they were lying snuggled up on the porch, clothes slightly askew.

-FAR-FAR-

The three teens and two Heroic spirits made their way back up the mountain to Ryuudou temple. It was Caster's idea. Over breakfast that morning, when Shirou had asked how they could find the Grail to start messing with it, and she had deigned to inform the others that the heart of the Grail was under the Temple

"I hate stairs" Rin groaned. Sakura nodded, but didn't have the breath to say anything. She was in the worst physical shape of the lot - archery really didn't do anything for your legs. She used the bow she had borrowed from the dojo as a walking staff. Archer, meanwhile, remained incorporeal to conserve prana.

Once up in the temple compound, they went back to the middle guest cottage and down the tunnel to the chamber where Assassin had kept Caster prisoner. Several other tunnels lead off from it. Some were barely large enough for a person to squeeze through, while others were as wide as a school corridor.

"I think the Grail system is close by" Caster pivoted her head left and right, as she tried to get a sense of how all the bounded fields connected to the lei line. Not that anybody else could see what she was looking at. "I'll get starting working on it."

"You look while we set up some fortifications" Rin started an aria, careful to keep out of Caster's way, physically and magically. Sakura and Shirou sat down to wait. There wasn't much that they could do until Kirei or his Servants showed up. Sakura took Shirou's hand. Shirou turned and smiled at his girlfriend. Or at least he hoped she was - they hadn't discussed it yet. ' _We really should talk about this. Later.'_

With everybody else working, it was almost private. Sakura leaned over towards Shirou. Shirou opened his lips and leaned towards her in turn.

"Get a room" Archer materialized.

Shirou's head whipped around, "we weren't.." Whatever else he was about to say was interrupted as Archer leaped into them knocking them both to the floor a moment before a red spear flashed through the spot where they had been sitting

Archer took a fighting stance, swords in hand as Lancer perched on a stalagmite that jutted ten feet into the air.

"I see you had the same idea as I did, and you even brought your own lesser Grail." Kirei nodded towards Sakura as he walked in. He was followed by a bored looking blond man wearing a leather jacket - Gilgamesh - who dropped a tightly bound bundle at his feet before striking a pose, a pair of gates of Babylon forming behind his shoulders.

Shirou rolled to his feet and projected his own pair of swords.

"Oy, now. There are two of you. That doesn't seem sportsmanlike" Lancer quipped as he dropped to the ground.

The Emyas charge, swords out. Lancer slashed at Archer, ducking under Shirou's slower attacks. "You two are like peas in a pod, anybody ever tell you that?"

Before Gilgamesh could launch any Noble Phantasm from the glowing Gates of Babylon hovering over his shoulders, he was confronted by an array of bluish portals streaking towards him.

"Ohh?" he cocked his head, hands in his pockets. He looked completely bored as he fired off swords at the portals, shattering them. But as quickly as he created new Gates, Caster summoned portals.

"So the child comes full circle, to face her master. It is just like in the legends of old," Kotomine waxed poetic as he blocked a kick from Rin with his knee before straightening his leg into a side thrust kick that sent his former student flying.

He had to throw himself sideways to avoid the splash of inky black that flew at him from the other girl, "And the prodigal sister returns as well. How heart warming!"

The battle was chaotic, with the combatants dodging around stalagmites and piles of rubble in the poorly lit cavern. Sakura finally managed to get her bow in hand and fired off a shot at Kirei, but in the gloom, she didn't even come close to hitting. She threw it back down in disgust and slit her palm with a knife, letting blood fill her palm. This was going to be a close in fight. At least for the humans.

Caster continued to warp reality around Gilgamesh, but the ancient hero was ripping all her spatial distortions apart with Ea. At the same time, they continued their artillery duel of portals versus Gates of Babylon. _'Last time, it took both Saber and me to take this clown down. His weakness is that he's an obsessive jerk and he is no good at splitting his attention.'_ She risked a glance over to where Archer was facing off against lancer.

No help would be available from that quarter. Archer was fighting defensively, not daring to use any of the more powerful Noble Phantasms in his armory for fear that his supply of prana would run out. Shirou kept circling, darting in and nipping at Lancer's side whenever the Servant in blue locked up with Archer. He was sticking with the Chinese broadswords, as they were most comfortable in his hands, and he couldn't afford a moments hesitation, or it would be the end of him.

"Yeaah!" Rin charged Kirei, reinforced arm shooting in for a lightning fast punch. The former Executor brought his his arm in and hunched down, letting the attack glance off of his shoulder. Rin staggered from hitting such an unyielding target. As she recovered, a pair of Black Keys flew at her. But before Kirei could throw any more, a whip of inky blackness lashed across his back..

He grunted in pain and stabbed the blackness with a Black Key, and then pivoted to pin it to the ground. Sakura's eyes widened in surprise as she realized she couldn't release the black energy. She tried to duck out of the way as the Fake Priest leaped at her, delivering a powerful punch to her stomach.

"I have always wondered if women react differently than men when they are hit." As Sakura folded over his fist, The fake priest followed up with a sharp hook to Sakura's head.

SNAP

Her head whipped around with a crack. As she collapsed three streaks of sickly green light flew at Kirei, exploding into concussive force. "Get away from my sister!" Rin followed up with a red gem that burst into a spear of fire as it flew, almost incinerating the priest as he rolled clear.

As Lancer landed another glancing blow on Archer, Shirou whipped his sword across the back of his leg attempting to hamstring the Servant. But Lancer pivoted, and jabbed,

' _Not again'_ Shirou knew there was no dodging the spear from this close. At least this time, he was fast enough to actually see the blow that killed him. _'Too bad I never told Sakura how much I love her.'_

A red clad body slammed into Shirou.

As Shirou smashed into a stalagmite, Archer collapsed, the spear piercing his chest.

"NO!" Caster turned from her opponent as a massive wave of 'something' swept out from her towards Lancer, making the stone walls ripple. Lancer had just enough time to look up in surprise before he was folded in half and then torn into four unequal pieces.

"Never take your eyes off your opponent."

Caster whipped back towards Gilgamesh as the elder hero raised Ea. The sword was spinning and tearing reality as he swept it in for a finishing blow. Gilgamesh smiled cockilly, almost bored, "Goodbye... urk?"

The last was pronounced as a thin needle of steel appeared from his chest. "Don't you dare hurt oni-chan!" Gilgamesh slid to the ground, revealing an angry looking Ilya standing behind him, a dagger in her hand. Cut off strands of rope were piled around her feet.

As Gilgamesh dissolved into pure prana, Caster lunged for Archer, siphoning all the prana in the air into a dazzling blue shape that looked like heart made from broken glass before shoving it into Archer's chest.

Archer took a gasping breath.

Caster pulled him in close, "Baka, I can't keep doing that!" tears were pouring down her face..

""Easy, easy there. I just took a mortal wound. It takes a couple of minutes to recover from one of those."

"Baka," Caster repeated with a smile before kissing him as Archer held her tight.

Shirou looked at Rin, "What the… Did you know about this?"

"Umm, yes, but only just recently," Rin blushed at the memory.

"Sakura!" Shirou had just spotted the purple haired girl lying unmoving on the ground. He ran over to her as the two servants broke apart. "She's still breathing, but she looks like she got hit on the head. Rin, can you do anything?"

Rin smiled, "of course" and palmed a small gem as she began her aria.

"I take it the Grail war is over?" Ilya asked.

"Yeah, I don't think those two are going to be fighting each other." Shirou replied, jerking his chin at the two remaining servants, who stood hand in hand.

"We still need to take the Grail apart." Archer was trying to act like his normal dour self, despite everything "and we don't have much time - I still have only a few hours of prana left, even if I don't use any Noble Phantasms."

"I can provide you with prana - As a Caster class, I can tie into the lei line here and tap enough for both of us. And I still have a command seal, from back, you know. If you become my servant, I can transfer prana to you directly." Caster was still standing at Archer's side, and the two of them appeared to be in their own personal world as they ignored the humans around them.

Rin continued to chant, and Shirou turned to Illya. "Thank you for coming to our rescue. You're a true hero."

Illya blushed at the complement before making a dismissive motion. "I didn't have much choice - that arrogant priest dragged me along." She paused looking embarrassed. "You didn't come back, Oni-chan, so I had to come find you."

"I'm sorry to have caused so much trouble for you. Things have been… you see."

Illya smiled, "I know, I am just teasing you. It took me a while to get myself together, but I decided to come talk to you one last time before it is too late. Unfortunately, I stopped at the Supervisor's to ask directions, and got captured."

Meanwhile, Archer considered Caster's proposal "Very well, but only on one condition. I also have command seal. I will become your Servant if you become mine." He held up a copy of Rule Breaker.

Caster swallowed, looking at Archer with a dazed stare like a deer in the headlights, "ok".

They both in turn pronounced the ritual words.

Rin was still concentrating on her spell, trying to stabilize Sakura, but she caught the last part of that. _'Ok, was it just me or was that some sort of freaky marriage ceremony?'_

Before she could say anything, Shirou exploded, "Wait, what will be too late?" he took Illya hands and looked at her worriedly.

"I am connected to the Grail system, and as it fills up with magical energy from the the slain servants, some of that energy pours into me. It will soon erode my body away to nothingness.

"Right! Lets take the Grail apart" Archer pronounced.

"I never said I would dismantle the Grail." Caster relied. As Archer quirked an eyebrow at his lover, she added, "You think too small, Sh.. Archer. It's because you are a third rate magus. I wish I could give your teacher a piece of my mind."

Archer tried hard to restrain a smirk, "She might already have it."

"She?" Caster bristled, "That's a discussion for another time. What is at issue right now is the Great Grail, and what we can do with it before we take it apart." She took the 'Tohsaka Lecture Pose #3'. "Did you know that not only is the Grail a magical battery sucking up power from the leylines and deceased Servants, it is also a back door into the Akashic records? When that function was used correctly, it let the founding families overwrite (temporarily) the record of who lived and who died. That is how they were able to summon forth the Servants."

Sakura sat up, pushing past an exhausted rin."Yeah, grandfather hoped to do this on a far grander scale, to actually bring back the dead." Rin allowed herself to slup down and finally catch her breath.

Shirou looked between Illya and Sakura before dragging his sister over next to Sakura so he could hold his girlfriend's hand. Illya rolled her eyes. "I don't like the direction this is taking," Shirou pronounced. "Hasn't this thing caused us enough pain?"

"Yes, and that is why I think we deserve a reward," Caster retorted. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to use the Grail like Zouken had planned, That would be irresponsible, dangerous, and would most likely fail. I'm just going to use it's power to search the Akashic record for a reality where Gaia won't attempt to wipe Archer and me from existence. That should drain most of the power from the grail." Caster smiled, as if what she had described was no more complicated than a Googling something on the internet. "And once we find our new home, Archer and I shall move there." Her eyes glowed bright blue as strands of energy danced from her body to the walls of the cave around them. She turned to look at the others before stopping at the dumbfounded Archer. "Is that acceptable for you?" Archer could just nod.

Caster smiled and took both of his hands in hers. The glow spread from her eyes to the rest of her body, and then to Archer. At the same time, she was starting to float - the only thing anchoring to the ground her was Archer.

The humans watched this spectacle, dumbfounded. "What about destroying the Grail?" Shirou asked, feeling like the Servants were ditching them.

Archer shrugged. It was a very unusual sensation: letting other people take care of their own problems. He wasn't certain if he would be able to manage something like this again, but just this once, he stepped back and let TOHSAKA decide what to do. "Try explosives, Or maybe Rin - she's almost as good." Archer shrugged, "It's your problem now."

Shirou started to get upset. They WERE ditching them!

Rin frowned, "wait..that would require that in this new world, both Caster and Archer are in the process of dying at the moment you transition in. What's the likelihood of that happening?"

Caster smiled affectionately at Rin, "I always was the smart one. Come along, SHIROU"

Caster and Archer winked out of existence.

"Ah, crap" Shirou breathed.

THE END, for some. A beginning, for others


	7. Epilogue Omake

Epilogue / Omake

Rin gasped in pain as Kirei pulled her in close, in a parody of a lover's embrace, as he twisted the Azoth dagger in her gut. She feebly tried to push her way free. As her life blood spilled over the bemused priest, Shirou turned in shock. "Rin!' he ran towards the pair, but as he did, Gilgamesh made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and a sword flashed out from the sky, decapitating the would-be hero.

"Mongrel, interfering in my entertainments, making a mockery of my treasures!' Gilgamesh sneered, "I did you a favor, sending you on after your lover. Now that there is one less annoying flea in the world, we are done with the opening act, and we can move on to the main performance - cleansing of the world. Soon, all those too weak will be swept away, leaving a perfect world, filled with the strong!"

Gilgamesh was so enthralled with the sound of his own voice that he didn't notice the tear in the fabric of reality forming behind him, folding open like a black rose, or the projected copy of Cruadh-Chosgarach - the 'Hard-Destroying One' that flew out of it and impaled him in back of head.

Kirei looked over in time to see two people step through the rift before it sealed itself back up. One was Archer, while the second looked remarkably like Rin Tohsaka. Except she looked a little older, a lot angrier, and she was floating three feet off of the ground. And glowing.

Kotomine promptly let go of the azoth dagger, which was the only thing supporting Rin's body "Ah, Rin. What a surprise. This isn't what it looks like."

EMYA found that statement amusing enough that he would have used it as the former priest's epithet. If there had been enough left of him to bury.

* * *

Hello all, thank you for reading my story.

I am just adding a quick note here to tell you that I am going to try my hand at original writing, and that if you want to help support me in my endeavors (or if you just want to watch me struggle and fail), come check out my page.

P atreon com / writeshop

I will continue to write Fanfiction as well, and your support will help motivate me to write faster


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